Hilary Wilce wins the Speculative Literature Foundation’s Older Writer’s Grant. Text of the press release is below the cut.

After graduating with a geography degree from the University of Cambridge, Hilary Wilce worked as a journalist before moving to the United States in 1990. Once in the States, her interest in writing longer literary short stories increased because, at the time, the literary form was encouraged by the industry more so in America than in the United Kingdom. She continues to work as a journalist, and has since earned her Master of Arts in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, part of the University of London. Currently, she is working on a novel addressing reality, how different people perceive and shape the same world around them, and the psychological dimensions of one’s character.

Grant Administrator Malon Edwards said of Wilce’s entry, After Beauville the Road Changed: “The reader is immediately thrust into a deliciously creepy story from the onset. A subtle, macabre atmosphere is set with excellent imagery, which includes a decrepit house sitting on untended grounds and unsettling, disturbed children. This is a rural French countryside few see, and none ever want to see again.”

Wilce wins a grant of US$500 to assist writers who are fifty years of age or older at the time of grant application, and who are just starting to work at a professional level.

Honorable mentions go to Beverly Smith-Dawson and Ada Milenkovic Brown for their unique and thought-provoking submissions, which made the selection of the eventual winner a difficult but enjoyable process.

PR Contact: Ashley Gronek [email protected]

The Speculative Literature Foundation is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the interests of readers, writers, editors and publishers in the speculative literature community. “Speculative literature” is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard and soft science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern mythmaking — any literature containing a fabulist or speculative element. More information about the Speculative Literature Foundation is available from its web site or by writing to [email protected].