I’ve entered the Bath Novel Award four times and been longlisted twice, but no further than that. It’s a good award, and well worth entering – there’s an excellent community around it if you have the time to engage.
Alan, it is judged completely blind, so there’s no favouritism going on, but it’s unavoidable that the judges of any award will favour a particular “style” over another. For example, I’ve never expected that my Fantasy novels would win anything there, or in any “literary”-type awards, but it’s still a buzz to enter.
As for criticism, I’m normally reasonably Ok with it. I think in this case it was just particularly to the point – it hit exactly what my weaknesses were/are (which is what is supposed to happen), I just wasn’t sure how I could address it without becoming a totally different writer, and I didn’t think I had the energy to do that.
On the other hand, perhaps the break was what I needed to recalibrate myself!
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