“Gerard Woodward’s life had improved even before yesterday. In his efforts to eke out a living as a praised but struggling poet and novelist, he had graduated from filling chocolate machines at one university, Manchester, to lecturing at another, Bath Spa.
But last night, in a turn of fortune which astonished the bookmakers as much as it did him, he heard that he was on the shortlist for the £50,000 Man Booker fiction prize for his second novel, I’ll Go to Bed at Noon.
‘I’m not, am I? That’s unbelievable’, said Woodward, 43, who was on a bus when he heard.”
More here from The Guardian.