Congratulations to Deirdre Purcell, whose novel Love Like Hate Adore (Town House) has been shortlisted for the 1998 Orange Prize for Fiction.
However, for the second year running this women-only contest is courting controversy across the water - not because entry is restricted to women (that storm has been weathered), but because of the dearth of British writers on both years' shortlists.
Last year's featured two Canadians, two Americans, a Scot and a Northern Irish author (Anne Michaels, who is Canadian, won), while this year the half-Guyanese Pauline Melville is the only English-born writer in a shortlist that includes Swiss-born New York resident Kirsten Bakis, Americans Anita Shreeve and Ann Patchett, Canadian resident Carol Shields and our own Deirdre Purcell.
Will this lead to another outburst from Prof Lisa Jardine who, chairing last year's judging panel, decried British novelists for being "smug and parochial" and for writing "narrow-minded" books with little international appeal? Mind you, she was mainly talking about male novelists (singling out Graham Smith, Julian Barnes and Martin Amis for special opprobrium), but it's obvious that British women novelists aren't cutting the mustard, either.
Nonetheless, this year's chairwoman, broadcaster Sheena McDonald, describes the 1998 shortlist as "very rich, a tremendous demonstration of how ambitious the novel has become. These are all original, adventurous and generous storytellers."
The £90,000 sterling cheque (a monetary impact only outstripped by IMPAC) will be presented at a ceremony in London's Royal Festival Hall on May 19th.
With an overall award of £1,000, the Fish Short Story Prize is financially more constrained (or maybe just restrained), but the fact that the 1997/98 competition attracted 1,100 entrants testifies to its appeal.
However, Clem Cairns, whose brainchild it is, has a bit of a problem - he can't locate winner Richard O'Reilly, whose story was chosen by judges Eamonn Sweeney and Pat Boran.
Eamonn thought he recognised the name and had an idea that Richard was a Dubliner, but Clem has failed to get a reply from the Sheffield address appended to the story and is wondering if Richard is now living in another part of Sheffield or England or if he's back in Ireland. If anyone can tell him, Clem can be contacted at 027-61246.
One way or the other, October will see the publication of Richard's story, along with the 11 runners-up, one of them written by Tim Booth, formerly of pop group Dr Strangely Strange - way back in those days when Bono wasn't even a twinkle in Paul McGuinness's eye. Tim, in fact, was a runner-up last year, too, and has also written a novel, due to be published by Fish later in the year.
Incidentally, Germaine Greer had agreed to be one of the judges, but didn't care for the adjudication system devised by Clem (rather complicated, I have to say) and at the last minute sent the stories back unjudged. This left Pat and Eamonn with a rush to meet the deadline.
And already next year's competition (with a rethought judging system) is under way. Closing date is November 30th, and you can get details from Fish Publishing, Durrus, Bantry, Co Cork.
Much as I cherish George Orwell (the essays and journalism especially), I'm not sure if I'll be lashing out £620 on the 20-volume complete works being issued by Secker in July - my pocket isn't bottomless and life is short.
Still, one must applaud the labours of 71-year-old academic Peter Davison, who has been engaged in editing the material for the past 17 years. Much of it will be unfamiliar even to devotees of Orwell - Davison has unearthed 1,080 letters and 700 reviews, as well as masses of notebook and diary entries. All that will be missing is a diary Orwell wrote while in Spain, which is now beyond reach somewhere in Moscow.