Indigo Dreams wins Most Innovative Publisher at Saboteur Awards

Dead Ink’s email-based novella The Night Visitors and poet Hollie McNish have both been honoured at the Saboteur Awards this year.

The prizes are organised by the Sabotage Reviews website which has run “dynamic commentary and reviews of small-scale and ephemeral literature” since being created by editor Claire Trevien in 2010. This year the awards attracted nearly 4,300 votes (full shortlist below).

Trevien said: “They represent literature at its most activist, fierce, and tender, and I hope you will go forth and discover each and everyone one of them.”

Indigo Dreams won Best Publisher while academic Lucy Durneen’s “exceptional” Wild Gestures (MidnightSun Publishing) won Best Short Story Collection.  

The Women Aloud NI was recognized twice: the five day project, which involved 150 women writers won Wildcard and its WomenXBorders event won best collaborative work. McNish was awarded runner-up for Best Spoken Word Performer with Manchester-based poet Dominic Berry securing the top spot. 

Sabotage Reviews focuses on independent, small-budget literature: poetry pamphlets, short stories and live performance and publishes around average of 500 reviews each year. Visit sabotagereviews.com

The full shortlist (with number of votes):

Best Magazine

Winner: Into the Void

Runner up: Butcher's Dog

Best Novella

The Night Visitors by Jenn Ashworth & Richard Hirst (Dead Ink)

Runner up: Portrait of the artist as a viable alternative to death by Ross McCleary (Maudlin House)

Spoken Word Performer

Dominic Berry

Runner up: Hollie McNish

Reviewer

Freya McClements

Runner up: Jessica Traynor

Most Innovative Publisher

Indigo Dreams

Runner up: Penned in the Margins

Anthology

Remembering Oluwale (Valley Press)

Runner up: Half Moon (Half Moon Books)

Best Short Story Collection

Wild Gestures by Lucy Durneen (MidnightSun Publishing)

Runner up: Attrib. by Eley Williams (Influx Press)

Poetry Pamphlet

Glass by Elisabeth Sennitt Clough (Paper Swans Press)

Runner up: Waves on a Boring Beach by Emma Hammond (Zimzalla)

Wildcard

Women Aloud NI (initiative)

Runner up: I am not a silent poet (magazine)

Spoken Word Show

Fat girls don't dance by Maria Ferguson

Runner up: How to starve an artist by Rose Condo

Regular spoken word night

Interrobang ?! (at the Biscuit Factory Edinburgh)

Runner up: Evidently (at the Eagle, Salford)

Collaborative Work

WomenXBorders (organized by Women Aloud NI initiative and Irish Writers Centre)

Runner up: Poetry on the Picket Line