Based in the Midlands, the International Rubery Book Award celebrates the region’s rich literary heritage while recognising outstanding independently published books from around the world.
Clare Morrall is the author of eight novels. Her first published novel, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003 and received widespread critical acclaim. It has since been translated and published in numerous countries around the world, including the US, Canada, Australia and across Europe.
Clare has appeared on television, including The TV Book Club, where The Man Who Disappeared was selected as one of its Summer Reads in 2010. She has been a guest on a number of BBC radio programmes, including Woman’s Hour, Front Row and Open Book on BBC Radio 4, and Private Passions on BBC Radio 3. She has also been interviewed extensively on regional and national radio and has given talks at literary events around the country, including the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Her novels have also been published in audio and large-print editions.
Her other novels are:
Natural Flights of the Human Mind
The Language of Others
The Man Who Disappeared
The Roundabout Man
After the Bombing
When the Floods Came
The Last of the Greenwoods
​Paul McDonald is our resident judge. He judged our first ever short story competition and edited the subsequent anthology entitled, The Tipping Point. He set the standard for what was to follow in the years after in which the quality only ever increased.
He taught modern literature at the University of Wolverhampton for twenty five years, heading its creative writing programme for over a decade. He is an award winning author of eighteen books, including three novels and three collections of poetry.
His most recent books include:
Don't Use the Phone: What Poets Can Learn from Books,
60 Poems
Allen Ginsberg: Cosmopolitan Comic.
