We’re thrilled that Jo Lloyd‘s short story collection The Earth, that Great Exchequer, Ready Lies has been shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize.
‘The prestigious prize, now in its 15th year, is the only national literary award to recognise excellence in a published, single-authored short story collection’
The winner of the £10,000 prize will be announced in November. The judges of the 2021 prize are 2020 winner Shelley Day, literary agent Elise Dillsworth and Dr Kim Wiltshire, writer and senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University.
Jo has said, ‘thrilled to be included on the Edge Hill Short Story Prize…congratulations to everyone here’.
Praise for The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies
‘A major talent’ – Hilary Mantel
‘Jo Lloyd writes stories that have the epic sweep, sly humor, and cold, thrilling depths of Mavis Gallant and Jim Shepard, as well as an idiosyncratic brilliance that is hers alone. Her sentences could rouse the dead (and do, in this excellent book)’ – Karen Russell
‘Jo Lloyd’s voice is clear-sighted and timeless, and the stories in her debut collection are magnetic and prescient‘ – Sara Baume
‘I would read anything with her name on it’ – Zoe Gilbert
‘Beautifully balanced and well-proportioned, the stories in The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies add up to a compassionate portrait of the ways that people are frail and all the different ways that they can fail’ – Jessie Greengrass
‘The collection reminds me of nothing so much as a series of incredibly detailed black and white photographs, each of which perfectly captures an aspect of existence that I’ve brushed against before but never taken the time to consider. And it’s not enough that each story is perfect; Jo Lloyd does more with single sentences than a lot of people do in entire novels’ – Sara Taylor
‘These stories have a relish for language and an enviable precision that announce a crisp, exciting new voice in short fiction’ – Richard Beard