Guinevere Glasfurd-Brown explains why the Escalator Talent Development programme was so important for her. Guinevere recently published her first novel The Words in My Hand, described as a ‘startling debut’ by The Sunday Times.

In the week that my debut novel The Words in My Hand was published in the UK, Writers’ Centre Norwich (now the National Centre for Writing) launched the Escalator writing competition for 2016. I want to encourage all who are serious about their writing to apply.

I was one of ten new writers mentored on the 2011/12 intake. The year-long programme and Arts Council England funding secured as part of it gave me time and space to develop my novel from an initial sketchy outline to a full first draft. The Arts Council grant funded two research trips to the Netherlands – research trips I could not have afforded by myself – and provided paid time to write. One-to-one mentoring sessions challenged me to produce work to a series of deadlines and showed me what life as a writer was like.

Something shifted in me as I went through the year. I no longer saw my writing as a hobby, but work. Bit-by-bit, Escalator enabled me to move writing from the periphery to the centre of my life.

The extraordinary thing is, I very nearly didn’t apply. I didn’t think my writing was good enough or that I had a novel in me, not then. I couldn’t claim that I’d wanted to be a writer since I was a child. I’d had a couple of short stories published, but had no track record as a novelist. In the end I realised I definitely wouldn’t get it if I didn’t apply. So, doing my best to banish my inner critic, I gathered my thoughts, put together the best application I could, sent it off and then put it out of my mind.

The WCN Escalator programme is such a rare opportunity. Take it. Apply.

The Words in My Hand

The Words in My Hand tells the story of the affair between Dutch maid, Helena Jans and French philosopher René Descartes. It is a story that was hidden at the time and almost entirely lost from history since. Published by Two Roads Books (an imprint of John Murray Press), it is The Times’ Book of the Month. Foreign language rights have sold in five countries outside the UK, and an edition has been published in Australia and New Zealand.

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