Huge congratulations to everyone who has been longlisted in the Blue Pencil First Novel Award. What a huge privilege it is to have read your work – and I don’t just mean the work that has gone through to the next round. I have marvelled over inventive story ideas and underlined beautiful sentences; I have fallen in love with many of your characters. It was incredibly hard to choose just 25 entries for the longlist because the standard was so high.

One of my Twitter followers has asked me what it was that gave the 25 that X-Factor. The answer is a strong voice – that quality that makes writing great, that stamps it into your memory so that you think about the characters long after you finish reading the pages. I’ve come across voices that are likeable, unlikeable, funny, bubbly and cross. It doesn’t matter what shape or form the voice takes as long as it is arresting and makes the reader want to spend time with it.

Liking a voice is incredibly subjective, but I prefer voices that show much more than they tell, that don’t explain too much, that make me do some guess work. I adore a voice that dishes out surprises.

I can’t wait to re-read the longlist again as we decide on the shortlist, then yippee – we get to read much longer excerpts to figure out who the winner will be. Good luck everyone, and a big thank you for letting me read your wonderful work.