Bloody Scotland festival diary: 'Wrong' book scores interest and trophy juggling for Crawford

The event - which has launched the careers of writers including The Tattoo Thief author Alison Belsham, who won the award exactly ten years ago to the day, scooping her a three-book deal with Orion - sees intrepid early-stage novelists publicly pitch their projects to a panel of industry experts.

This year’s winner was Caroline Grebbel with her book, The Songs of the Trojan Mothers, set in Ireland in the 1970s, while the runner-up was Janet Bell, with DIY, telling the story of hardware store worker looking to get justice for crimes against women, by essentially renting out murder weapons from the shop where she works.

One would-be author, Ellen Jackson, gave a very polished pitch for her novel about a submariner killer husband who goes away on a work trip, leaving a body behind in the loft - only to be met with puzzled looks from the panel, made up of literary agent Diana Beaumont, journalist and author Lisa Howells and Stephen Cameron, creative director of Into Books.

“This wasn’t in our notes,” said a confused Cameron as Ms Jackson finished her pitch. Festival bosses are still looking into what happened, but it seems there was some confusion between which book Ms Jackson had pitched - and which had been shortlisted.

It looks like it has worked out for her though, rumour has it she was approached after the event by a major publisher keen to get their hands on her manuscript.

Trophy trouble and united at last

Friday’s prize announcement ceremony was quite an event for Bloody Scotland’s first-ever double award winner Frances Crawford - in more ways than just her iconic dual win.

Crawford became the first ever writer to win both the debut novel prize and the prestigious McIlvanney prize for the best Scottish crime book, which she was presented with at an event in Stirling on Friday night.

But the presentation also gave her the chance to finally meet the woman she credits with her writing career in person for the first time: The Cutting Room author Louise Welsh. Welsh, who was nominated for the Orange Prize for fiction for her 2003 novel and has since penned nine books, was Crawford’s tutor in her MA Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow and encouraged her to develop her first short story.

She and Welsh had never actually met her in real life due to the course being held on Zoom - but after the news that Crawford had scooped not only the debut prize, but the prestigious McIlvanney Prize too, the pair were united for the first time in the green room before they went on stage.

It was lucky Crawford had friends around her during her win, as Bloody Scotland organisers had failed to factor in how the first-ever double award winner in the festival’s history would actually hold both of her her trophies, never having had to think about it before - a massive Glencairn Glass as well as the Debut prize.

Guest programmer and veteran author and playwright Denise Mina stepped in and held one of Crawford’s trophies - giving the impression in official pictures that she actually won the prize for best first novel, a mistake Mina - who first published her debut, Garnethill, in 1998 - was keen to set straight.