What do John Boyne, Tracy Chevalier, Joe Dunthorne, Anne Enright, Jane Harris and Kazuo Ishiguro have in common? Apart from the obvious? And apart from only coming in the first third of the alphabet?
Graduates of the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing course seem to be the only people writing novels at the moment. Or novels that people will buy. The enigmatically named DW Wilson – the latest from the prestigious literary stable – and his short story finished frontrunners in the National BBC Short Story Award. The Canadian post grad beat off competiton from Jon McGregor, M J Hyland, Alison MacLeod and K J Orr to be crowned the youngest-ever winner of the £15,000 prize.
He’s already got a published collection of short stories under his belt and is currently working on a novel, Ballistics, which is set during the 2003 British Columbia wildfires. He also wrote an entertaining – if rather self-indulgent – piece on voice
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