Posted by Helen DeWitt
http://paperpools.blogspot.com/2026/04/we-lose-again-windham-campbell-prize.html
Was going to post this on Substack, but they don't let you indent blocks of text.
Today’s insanely long installment
concerns a major prize which I was told I’d won back in February, but for which
I turned out not to be eligible because unable to promote the prize to their
satisfaction. I have held off posting this, since the prize was to be
confidential until its announcement on April 8.
On February 10 I went to Amsterdam to
stay in an apartment a reader had very kindly offered me. I was in a bad way
after the publication of Your Name Here; had hoped to be very quiet, to write
and clear the head. The wifi had been disconnected, but this seemed like a good
thing, conducive to work.
On February 11 I got an email on my
phone from my editor at New Directions, who said I must not ignore an email
from Michael Kelleher. Barbara has my gmail address; the general public has
access to a gmx address which doesn’t show up on the phone, requires opening
the browser. Checked, saw email asking me to call him.
We talked on the 12th. He told me I
had won a Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction of $175,000.
For about 3 seconds I was thrilled: this would give me the chance to work on texts using Edward Tufte's information design without relying on a publisher for technical support, something I had failed to put in place in over 20 years.
I then learned that the award was contingent on extensive promotion of the prize. While I thought I could attend
the 6-day festival at Yale in September, I was not in a state to drop everything to make
an audio interview and promotional video and engage in phone discussions of the
publicity process.
Communication was difficult, not only
because of absence of wifi but because my phone later seemed to run out of
data. It took a while to determine that the festival was not enough; the
promotional video was absolutely non-negotiable. Another one bites the dust.
People get huffy about suicide
(selfish to do it, help should be sought, seeking help is called threatning
suicide); it’s true that it causes distress, so one tries to avoid it. But the
best way is to avoid being driven to the edge in the first place. If you’re
trying not to crack up, there are some things you can’t do; it’s hard to get
people to accept that.
Have set out this messy story for the
record.
2/12/2026 00:49 [after preliminary
emails from Barbara & Michael]
Dear Michael ,
I'm so sorry ! I came to Amsterdam
yesterday and am staying in an apartment whose WiFi isn't working, so can't use
my laptop & zoom. Have never installed zoom on my phone so a bit leery now.
Would it help to talk on the phone? If
so I can be reached at [redacted.
With best wishes
Helen
[Email from Michael saying he is in a
meeting until 9pm but free to talk the next day]
2/12/2026 1:33
Having trouble sleeping so 9pm your
time would probably be all right, but if that's a long day for you
tomorrrow would be fine -.maybe 9 am your time?
Helen
[Email from M agreeing to 9]
2/12/2026 2:15 [H to M]
tonight? tomorrow? (Both were
possibilities)
[email saying he will call in 8
minutes]
2/12/2026 02:59 [H to M]
Terrific!
[We talk. He asks if it is OK to
record. I say Of course.] He asks if I have heard of the Windham-Campbell Prize
and I say I think so. He explains that it was founded with a bequest from
Windham to honour Campbell: Windham had been a writer and had unexpectedly
received a royalties check of $5000 in [I think] 1947 from [I think] a play he
had worked on. The money had given him three years to write his first novel. Windham
and Campbell had remembered how much it had meant to have this time to write
and wanted to set up an arts fund that would give other writers time. The prize
had been launched in [I think] 2013. I had been selected as one of the winners;
it was a prize of $175,000.
He explains that the decision-making
process is completely secret. You can’t apply; requests for nominations are
sent out, an initial selection is made and followed up with requests for
references. This had been going on for a year. My name had been put forward and
many people had advocated for me. People loved my work!
There were a few conditions: To come
to a 6-day festival at Yale in September, when the prize money would be paid. [That
didn’t sound too bad. But he kept going on, and it sounded worse and worse, and
each requirement was presented as something very minor] Write a piece for the Yale Review, make a
podcast with him, make a video and audio recording before the announcement on
April 8. He explained that during the pandemic they had faced constraints but
they had found a way to make videos and record interviews by sending production
equipment to people’s homes!
I tried to sound grateful and enthusiastic since this was presumably wanted for
the recording, talking about the chance to incorporate Tuftean infoviz into fiction, but it sounded as though the prize would require instantly putting a
stop to work yet again. He said he would send me an email with the
terms.
2/12/2026 16:46
Email sending requirements for prize,
with attached letter of terms to which I must agree. Perhaps the text of the
terms will make clear how challenging this would be for someone of restricted
capacity.
According to the letter,
The award and prize money will be
conferred at a ceremony at Yale University on September 16, 2026. Yale will host a
festival celebrating the work of you and your fellow prize recipients from
September 15-18, 2026. The requirements for accepting the prize are that you 1)
attend the ceremony and participate in the festival, 2) film a short personal
video for the prize announcement and 3) contribute an original piece to a
special issue of The Yale Review. (In the event that we are
unable to host an in-person festival, you will be asked to participate in a
similar number of events for a virtual festival), 4) record an episode of the Windham-Campbell
Prizes Podcast in May or June of this year. The only additional requirements
for accepting the prize are that you indicate that you are a “recipient of the
Windham-Campbell Literature Prize” in your author biography and publicity
materials. Afterwards, you are free to use the prize money as you please. No reporting
is required.
The email goes into a great deal
more detail on arrangements for video and other publicity:
Video Interview and Portrait Photography
We will be sending a production team from 5:00 Films and Media to your
location to film a video profile and photograph an official portrait. To that
end:
- A
producer from 5:00 Films & Media will contact you by email to review
interview details and schedule a pre-interview call.
- During
the pre-interview call, the producer will discuss the video, explain the
filming and portrait photography process, and answer any questions you may
have.
- Each
profile will include two main components:
- Remote
Audio Interview (Approx. 1 hour)
5:00 Films & Media will conduct a remotely produced, audio-only
interview during the window of February 25 – March 6, 2026. A USB
microphone will be provided in advance to ensure high-quality sound. - In-Person
Filming Session (6–8 hours)
5:00 Films & Media will spend one day filming with you during the
window of March 9 – March 20, 2026, capturing observational
footage and visual elements that reflect your work and daily environment.
- In
preparation for the interview, please provide the following:
- Your
availability within the two date ranges listed above
- Your
current city/location
- A
shipping address where we can send production materials
- Following
the filming, the producer may follow up to request additional supplemental
materials, such as photographs, video, or other visual media relevant to
your story.
Publicity
- An
associate from Midas PR will email you to set up a 15-20-minute
conversation. The purpose of this call is to get to know you better as
they plan the publicity campaign.
- You
may be asked to do interviews with interested media prior to or following
the announcement on Wednesday, April 8, 2026.
Please complete this information and publicity survey no later than
Monday, February 16, 2026:
Please proof this bio for accuracy:
Born in Maryland in 1957, Helen DeWitt is the author of
five books of fiction, including The Last Samurai (2000), hailed as the
best book of the twenty-first century by New York Magazine. Echoes of a
lifetime spent living across different locales, from Brazil to England,
reverberate in her work, where polyglot characters navigate the world through
rational logic, only to be confounded by their own baffling species. In her
novella The English Understand Wool (2022), DeWitt is at her most
delightfully Swiftian, roasting the publishing industry through the tale of a
seventeen-year-old girl raised to avoid mauvais ton, or bad taste, who
finds herself pressured to sell her trauma in a maudlin memoir. One emerges
from this witty, laugh-out-loud adventure into an author’s note offering
instructions on how one can directly support her work (or even just buy her a
cup of coffee)—the author’s genius brought to human proportions. DeWitt is that
rare writer who refuses compromises that would dilute her work’s power despite
the personal sacrifices at stake. Her latest novel, Your Name Here (2025),
co-authored with journalist Ilya Gridneff, took twenty years to publish and is
a mind-melding mashup featuring autofiction, real-life correspondence, a
book-within-a-book, and a suite of second-person narrators. Having studied
Classics at Oxford University, where she earned her PhD, DeWitt has since
eschewed academia and remains fiercely committed to exploring alternative ways
of realizing her literary vision, which includes over 100 projects on her hard
drive. She lives between Berlin and a cottage in the woods of Vermont.
Please respond to this email immediately, confirming your acceptance of
the requirements to participate in prize announcement videos and festival
events (virtual or in-person, as circumstances permit), contribute to a special
issue of The Yale Review, participate in media outreach and special
projects (which may include interviews, podcasts, or other forms of media), and
hereafter to include some version of the phrase "recipient of the
Windham-Campbell Prize" in your author bio. Payment of the award will
take place on or after Friday, September 18, 2026, contingent on the successful
completion of all of the above.
I think I am looking death in the face.
Can’t get my head around this – impossible to imagine Pynchon or Cormac
McCarthy, in early career, contemplating this with anything but horror. If I had 8 months clear before the festival I
might be able to go to that, but how can I drop everything now, when I had
finally cleared time to write after 5 very bad years? Must think of something
polite to say. Must find Wifi to explain.
I thought perhaps it wouldn’t be a big
deal, simply going to the festival, because we can think of so many writers we
admire for whom the whole thing would be unthinkable – off the top of my head,
Dickinson, Proust, Kafka, Beckett, Pessoa, Salinger, Harper Lee, Pynchon,
DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, Ferrante. But
I must certainly explain.
I find that the University Library is 15
minutes away and think I can get Wifi there. I walk over (getting lost a couple
of times) and discover that it is (as far as I can tell) not open to the
public, only to members of the University. (Possibly, now I think of it, a
necessary defense against throngs of tourists in search of Wifi.)
Go back to apt, exh’d.
2/12/2056 17:45 [H to M]
Dear Mike,
I'm sorry, but I can't cope with
trying to answer this on my phone. I tried to use the University library today
but it was only open to university members. I will see whether I can get my
laptop online at the public library tomorrow and answer everything then.
With best wishes,
Helen
Email at 18:07 from MK saying he
forgot the cc’s (there are a lot)
Email at 19:02 from MK in reply to my
email saying not to worry
2/13/26 12:04
Email from Hannah Bright asking me to
complete publicity form in Google and suggesting we have phone or video chat to
discuss process
2/13/26 22:40 Email from Chad
Schreiner, producer at 5:00 Films &
Media, explaining that they will be preparing films for the prize announcement
on April 8 and asking to set up 30-minute phone call to discuss video content,
filming process, portrait photography, with link to Calendly to set up time
Must try again to find wifi.
I find there is a public library about a
30-minute walk away, so I go there. There are plenty of places to hook up a
laptop, but the instructions for Wifi are all about how to connect a phone. Do
not have the fortitude to ask a member of staff or other visitor so leave.
18:23 Back at the apartment I send out a tweet
hoping someone has a suggestion.
I'm in Amsterdam thanks to a very kind
reader. A joy of the apartment is in fact current absence of WiFi (recalcitrant
provider) but I urgently need to deal with a couple of professional emails
where phone won't do. Tried library b only saw instructions for app to connect
phone
Anyone in Amsterdam who might be able to
help? Seems the days of laptop friendly cafes are long gone.
People respond, including one recommending
his co-work space, and one person suggests, erm, Starbucks. Yes. Headpiece
filled with straw. Head so stupid, did not INSTANTLY THINK to look for a
Starbucks instead of wandering the city in search of a library. There is a
Starbucks a 6-minute walk away.
Starbucks closes at 8. It is too late to
go there today.
2/14/26 11:40 (from Starbucks) [H
to M]
Dear Mike,
I'm sorry not to have replied immediately. As I've said, I am staying in an
apartment where the wifi doesn't work, and it's very hard for me to write
emails on my phone. I kept looking for a library to get connected and
failing - the university library doesn't let outsiders in, the public library
only had instructions for connecting a phone to wifi. Last night someone
suggested Starbucks, which was obvious but I had been too tired to think of it.
I am facing a problem.
Will Evans of Deep Vellum/Dalkey made an offer for YOUR NAME HERE in May
2022. I was desperate to get back to writing after caring for my mother for the
first 15 months of the pandemic, but I thought I must agree out of loyalty to
my co-author.
Will said they would publish in late 2023 early 2024, but in the end he took
three and a half years to get the book into print, missing every conceivable
deadline many times, littering the book with mistakes that had to be
fixed. I could not live on the very small advance, split with my
co-author, but though other money came in I could not use any of it to finish
my own books. Every time I tried to clear time there would be some new crisis.
I found myself struggling with crushing fatigue - some days I would not be able
to get out of bed. Sometimes putting on socks was the achievement of the day.
People are constantly asking me for interviews, but it would have been better
not to do any; I had to force myself to do two out of loyalty to my co-author.
At last it was over. I thought I could use 2026 to salvage the books Will
and his team had kept derailing. In January a producer renewed his option
on THE ENGLISH UNDERSTAND WOOL, so I had $25,000 and this time I could actually
use it. I arranged to go to Amsterdam thanks to an offer from a reader.
From March 23 to May 16 I have 8 weeks of a carrel - a lockable office - booked
at the Staatsbibliothek. (These are very rare - bookings open twice a year, and
you have to log in at 8 am to seize a place before they're gone.) After
that the plan was to go to my cottage in Vermont, which has no internet access
and no cellphone access.
None of these arrangements facilitate organizing logistics with people - the
whole point was to set up places where I wouldn't have to talk to anyone, where
I could think about nothing but the books that had been crowded out by the
years of chaos. And all these years with Deep Vellum have used up all the
energy that ought to be available for fixes. Just how tired and stupid do you
have to be not to realize Starbucks would have internet access? Not to realize
there is a Starbucks a 6-minute walk from the house?
Anyway, if we could make a fair allocation of energy, it's obvious that the
Windham-Camptell is spectacularly generous, and if it sets store by
participants' promoting the prize it has every right to expect people to be
involved in the program in the way it prefers. It's not fair that Deep
Vellum should absorb all available energy in years of chaos. It's not fair, but
it just is the case that I am now someone who takes two days to think of
Starbucks as a place with an internet connection.
I feel as though, if I were following my original plan for 2026, writing
would bring back energy as it always does, and I would easily be able to take
part in the festival week planned for September. I wondered whether it
would be acceptable for me to do that, and not struggle to pull off the various
things that are part of the announcement program.
With many apologies,
Helen
PS I will try to complete the Google document while I have access to Wifi.
[NOTE: This was very unfair to Will, who
did not personally do everything at DV, and to Deep Vellum/Dalkey, who were not
solely responsible for everything wrong in the 3.5 years. It’s true that it
took 8 months to finalize a contract, that a lot of things needed last-minute fixing
at the very protacted end, that publicity was rough, that delays in the last
year forced me to withdraw from a Writer-in-Residence position at UVA scheduled
for February 2026; but my co-author was the main point of contact for the long
intermediate period between signature & last year. Could not go into
desperate months-long scramble to get post-Brexit residency, the Konstantinou
saga, the French translator saga, & so much more – if YNH had been
published quickly I might have been less undone by the rest. Was trying to
compress desperation into short space.]
Long silence. Made what would later prove
fatal mistake: spent hours play mah jong on my phone, under impression I had
unlimited roaming data in EU. Very late, wondered if Thunderbird had somehow
sent email from different gmail account which did not appear on phone. Hour of internet searching to find out how to
access Gmail 2, where I find email with timestamp from mid-afternoon:
2/14/26 16:43 [M to H]
Email from
Michael explaining that both publicity and attendance at the festival are
mandatory so a solution must be found.
He has talked to Chad and thinks they can do the video on a single day
in Amsterdam, with perhaps an hour or two on the phone before the production
team arrives. They can either film at my place or arrange another venue. He would like to talk on the phone to agree
on a date; they would only need one day for shooting video and b-roll [what is
a b-roll] and portrait photo.
[What
is a b-roll? According to Google’s AI, it is supplemental or alternative
footage intercut with the main, primary footage (A-roll)
to enrich the narrative, add visual interest, and provide context.]
Exh’d.
Don’t know what to say. Look, suppose you want me to do a 315-lb bench
press. I say I can’t and you say it’s mandatory. Saying it’s mandatory does not
make it possible for me to bench 315.
And now there has already been a phone call, and if I am writing a flood
of words coming in at the ear displaces voices, structure, paradigms, game
analysis, the work taking shape in the head. And now it seems multiple phone
calls are required simply as a preliminary. And I have been walking the streets
of Amsterdam in search of wifi to write a single email.
I see that I must write another email and
try to explain better. Can’t do it w 2-thumbed typing on phone.
I head out next morning for
Starbucks. It is snowing. I get lost. I
keep trying, crossing now one canal now another, trudging through the snow,
backtracking, getting lost, and when I’ve got lost 6 times I go home.
Warning from WinSim, my German cellphone
provider: apparently I have reached upper limit of data for roaming? Is phone
about to get cut off?
Write to editor
at New Directions, Barbara Epler.
6/15/26 18:04
Barbara, having
serious problems with Michael kelleher. Any chance I could.talk to you, maybe
on WhatsApp? My number is [redacted].
6:46 tweet to
ND (afraid phone will get cut off)
@NewDirections help! Phone out of data, can’t get to
Starbucks. Ask barbara to tellMK I have no way to contact him, can only do what
I said I would do, available September. Hope to write from berlin mid-march.
DM from Twitter follower suggesting I get
an e-sim. I look into this; my phone does not accommodate e-sims. Follower says I could buy a new temporary sim
card and swap it in. Might be able to do this if I could first swap in a
temporary head.
Time passes. No word. I think I must try
again to reach Starbucks.
2/15/26 20:14. Starbucks!
I complete the Google doc re publicity
2/15/26 20:33
[time stamp is Berlin time, an hour later than Amsterdam;SB about to close]
Dear Michael,
Thunderbird seems to have sent my email from a different gmail address, one
which I can't automatically check from my phone.
Found this at last very late last night. Tried to return to Starbucks
today to reply and got lost 6 times wandering the streets of Amsterdam, which
is typical when the voices coming into the head take up 90% of capacity. I know
from experience that if I keep pushing to deal with practicalities while the
mind is in this state the next stage is losing passport, cards, keys, finding
myself locked out in the street with no way to contact anyone who could help.
Important to back away before cracking up.
My German cellphone company says I have nearly exhausted the data available
for overseas roaming - it keeps shutting off connection. So anything that
relies on a phone call can't happen.
When we first spoke you explained that during the pandemic you had found a
solution to getting videos made which you were very pleased with; I gather the
current plan is an adaptation of that.
The pandemic also left millions dead or with long-term disabilities; I would
assume it must also have forced you to agree to exceptions to the publicity
requirement for people dealing with physical or mental disability. I believe I
ought to be able to claim this disability exception as a matter of course.
If in fact the only issue confronted was that of getting videos made, if no
serious thought was given to the implications of a global health crsisis,
nothing I can say is likely to change it. But the word "mandatory'
is not an Open Sesame; I have said what I am capable of and am not able to do
more.
You have explained that the inspiration for the prize was the $5000 royalty
check which gave Windham three years to write a novel. The thing that was
lifechanging was a windfall, which unexpected royalties checks do tend to be.
If the superstructure of the prize excludes people who are not able to do all
the extra things you want, that hardly seems in the spirit of what was intended
by its generous founders.
Sincerely,
Helen
20:49 email
from B saying she just got email is at lunch can she call in hour and half
20:59 Of course. Thank you!
22:33 I do
manage to call B on WhatsApp
No idea what’s going on with phone or what
warning meant, but it still definitely doesn’t seem like something to be relied
on for publicity liaison or interviews.
I try to explain to Barbara. I explain
about getting lost 6 times trying to find Starbucks 3 streets away, and how the
next phase is much worse, and how I need to be quiet and write. I expain that I
have spent months looking like a Beckettian tramp, and surely they do not want
to haul a Beckettian tramp in front of the camera. We discuss possibility of
asking for prize to be given next year. Barbara says she will talk to Mike.
2/16/26 18:39
Email from B who has talked to Mike.
She suggested September-only appearance but he thought it would not be fair to
the other winners. Perhaps the video could be like that of a Chinese author who
did not want face shown so they filmed around her, or perhaps an audio-only
presentation.
[Mike seems not to have grasped the
issue with roaming]
He said because I had brought up issue
of disabilities he must talk to Yale legal counsel.
Barbara floated possibility of
delaying prize for a year, that by next spring I could probably make time for
video or audio presentation. He said it had never been done before but said he
would have to speak to some people and would get back to us in a few days.
2/18/26.
Wake up very sick, with stomach spasms that I
have to wait out, hot, sore, shivering. Have been through this before, when
people are making nice noises while ignoring desperation. When my cousin was
dying of lung cancer, w no health insurance, my uncle would not release money
left in trust for him but kept uttering teflonic Reaganite sentimentalities,
said What about AA? Maybe my cousin’s friends in AA could set up a rota to look
after him? Went out to dinner with my cousin’s twin and her boyfriend (who’d been
putting him up for a year), collapsed in spasms on floor of restaurant.
2/18/26. 18:47 [email from Mike]
Michael writes. He is delighted that they can host me for the festival at
Yale, which many winners have described as a highlight. The videos are a cornerstone of how they
introduce their winners to their audience and build the legacy of the prizes.
He can ask the publicist to back off re requests for interviews and we can also
not do a podcast in May. They want me to be comfortable with how I am presented
in the profile video. They can rent a studio in Amsterdam and arrange a car
service to take me there. Rather than three reels for social media they would record
60-90 seconds of me reading from my work.
2/19/26 00:39 [email to Mike sent from phone]
Sorry, you deserve a polite reply but
I am v ill. Stomach spasms, excruciating, cant eat or drink or get out of
bed. Hot, sore, violent shivers. No idea how long will last.
Think a video will not work of me
shuddering in bed. Maybe? Get key of Berlin apt from neighbor and film there,
lots of papers, photos, team cd rummage around and if necessary sent equipment
in advance to neighbor. Maybe you cd get people like Ryan Ruby and
Rebecca ruykeser and Sheila heti to read from my work.
Can send contact details if necessary.
Sorry to be brief but pretty sick
Helen
2/19/26 20:57 [to Mike from phone]
Perhaps you could get my ex-husband
David to talk about my work and the background - he's professor of Classics at
NYU and terribly charming and charismatic, and could give a real sense of how
transformational the prize would be. His email address is [redacted]
Helen
Sorry to keep casting around for
alternatives, but still having spasms and incapacitated
2/23/26 15:06 [email from Mike]
Mike is sorry to hear I am sick. He
has been consulting with the board and university colleagues. Using third-party
recordings or filming in an empty location would not fulfill prize
requirements. My participation is essential; he suggests postponing my prize
for a year. It would then be possible to film at my convenience during the 12
months. He gives a link to a video of Wong May which uses a voice-over of the
writer and films her hands rather than her face.
2/23/26 15:40 [email to Mike]
Dear Michael
I think Wong May's approach is one
that would work for me but I would need to be in Berlin to produce something
like this.
If that is acceptable I would prefer
to do this now but I would need to go back to Berlin, where all the materials
are available.
I seem to remember that the video was
to be made after March 9. If I could be available then would that work?
You can perhaps understand that it's
hard to make a sudden change of gear having set up something quite different.
But it would be better for me to do this now and then not think about it.
You might not understand. Last year I
agreed to do a seminar on zoom for Brandeis and so booked a blow-out with a
hairdresser on the day - deliberately not booking a cut bc much cd go wrong.
The hairdresser suggested a little trim, did not have resolution to refuse, her
"trim" of the bangs left me with a Mr. Spock cut ON THE DAY. So when
you suggest a video, I think that I am not strong enough to control a
hairdresser, and I don't want to be filmed looking like Spock.
This is not an irrational fear when
it's the norm for people to apply filters to their videos, and to me the
obvious solution is to eliminate the video and make it about the writing. But
if the video matters so much, it seems a bit silly to make failure to stand up
to a hairdresser the deal breaker for the prize. It would be better to do a
video like wong may's.
Best
Helen
2/23/26 16:21 [M to H]
Mike likes Wong May’s video. Before
they proceed he needs me to formally agree to the terms of participation (re videos,
publicity and festival participation); if there are elements outside the video
they are willing to adjust these.
2/24/26 15:22
[M to H]
Email from Mike asking whether I have
seen the above email because they need to move forward.
I had thought I could cope if I got the
video out of the way, but as soon as I agreed I regretted it. I had thought I
could get it out of my head. But it doesn’t work that way. If something is
completely irrational the mind keeps going around and around and around for
hours – it keeps me up till 5 am, I sleep, as soon as I wake it is going around
and around and around again, and it goes on for days, weeks, months – this was
the whole reason to come to Amsterdam! To be cut off. To shut down the
arguments in the crazy head.
Also, this did not look good. Mike had not
drafted new terms incorporating the concessions offered earlier – I was to
formally agree to the original terms and rely on not being held to all of them
at their discretion. Just how stupid
would you have to be to do that?
Could also not see how making the video
would not be reminiscent of the game show in Lightning Rods. I would not
be able not to think of it.
Could something else be done? Maybe it was asking too much of a team of
commercial video producers to make a film of my apartment. But wd it be so
different from filming Bacon’s studio, now (I think) transferred to Dublin? I
knew Helen Marten, winner of the Turner Prize (that is, she had won and
insisted on sharing it); she had once invited me to take part in a
Prada-sponsored installation in Paris. What if Helen M. were to make a video in
the Absence of the Author? Surely this would be much more interesting than a
bit of intellectual kitsch, something of genuine artistic interest? Might it
not be obvious to the board and colleagues that this was much better, and
self-evidently offering greater prestige to the prize? I began to draft an email to Helen &
halfway through thought – but how can I interrupt her work for this
nonsense?
I asked myself: Can this possibly be
legal? Janet Frame was about to be lobotomized when her first book unexpectedly
won a prize. Artaud was confined to an
asylum and subject to ECT. Walser was confined to an asylum. One wouldn’t
expect them to make a video? Could a prize possibly exclude anyone who was
schizophrenic, clinically depressed, suffering from PTSD? Laura Hillenbrand has
ME/CFS – can they disqualify anyone with ME? Anyone suffering from Long Covid? Instead of all this begging and pleading and explaining,
maybe it would be better to have a lawyer stalk in and kick ass. Well, might not be legal, but I could not
think of a way to find a lawyer quickly, and if I tried to find out it would
drag on and on and on.
Poor crazy head. The prize was inspired
(as I had said in my email) by the extraordinary help it gave Windham when he
unexpectedly got a royalties check. I
have had that kind of windfall – and the thing about royalties is that your
entitlement is not contingent on sanity, on ability to talk on the phone, to
engage in PR. Why would anyone think all this compulsory PR was an improvement?
And what was the point? Sometimes arts
NGOs badger recipients to do things they don’t want to do because it appeals to
donors. But Windham-Campbell doesn’t need donors! It is fully funded by the
Windham-Campbell bequest! They don’t need the money!
Or sometimes an organization thinks it
needs to work on outreach – perhaps it wants to encourage members of
underserved communities, people who might not have heard of it, to apply. But
you can’t apply for Windham-Campbell! The selection process is a secret! It can’t be about outreach!
It did not make sense, and it was never
going to make sense. But the mind would keep going around and around, convinced
that people doing something so senseless must be able to see it was completely
bonkers. But they weren’t going to see it. So I should stop.
2/24/26 16:25
[email to Mike]
Dear Mike,
When we communicated yesterday I thought that if my prize were put off until
next year I would have all the commitments hanging over my head; if I could
somehow do the video now I could get it out of the way and not have to think
about it.
As soon as I volunteered to do this I had doubts because of the disruption it
would cause. I then got your email asking me to agree to the original terms and
conditions, with no adaptation reflecting the various concessions you had
offered. So involvement in PR would still be at the team's discretion.
I'm sorry to say that I can't guarantee being able to do what is required. If I
simply stop now I can use the whole of 2026 and 2027 for writing without
interruption; after the last few years I desperately need this. So I must
regretfully decline to accept the prize on the specified terms. I am sure you
will be able to find a candidate who can comply with them.
I shall of course respect the confidentiality surrounding the prize before its
announcement on April 8.
With best wishes,
Helen
2/24/26 17:02
[email from Mike]
Mike wishes
there were a way to make it work but it sounds as though it would be too
disruptive to my writing and so accepts my decision to decline the prize. Admiration for my writing, good wishes, etc.
I went back to Berlin a few days later. I
was worried I might crack up in a strange place; it would matter less if I was back
in my own apartment, and it was better to go while I was still able to get
there. On the way I did lose my Barclaycard Visa, but it could definitely have
been worse.
I think that if I had been in Berlin when
I got the news, if the mind had not been beset by these obstacles to
communication, if I had not reached a place where I expected to have a clear
run at writing and suddenly had it snatched away, it might have been all right.
Given that the prize involves a year of
secret deliberation, followed by publicity blitz requiring winners’ immediate
participation, it does rather set itself up for Hardyesque twists of fate.
* Upon returning to Berlin I noticed a message on my phone
from Winsim, my cellphone provider, saying I had used 80% of my data, that this
would automatically be extended at the charge agreed in the contract, &
that I could buy a Data Snack of 2GB, 5GB, or 10GB at a modest price for the
rest of the month. So it seems I was not about to be cut off. Poor crazy head.
[I joined the Authors Guild when I got back to Berlin to see whether disqualification on the basis of inability to provide a video was legal. According to the Authors Guild this is legal.]
http://paperpools.blogspot.com/2026/04/we-lose-again-windham-campbell-prize.html
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