After being turned down by ‘every major publisher in London’ for his Portico winning novel Beastings, the author says landing the £10,000 prize ‘felt like a vindication’

Benjamin Myers, who has beaten Alan Garner to win the £10,000 Portico prize for literature for his novel Beastings, has spoken of how he was “turned down by every major publisher in London” before landing a book deal.

Beastings by Benjamin Myers review – austere and brilliantly shocking Read more

Set in Cumbria in the distant past, Beastings sees a teenage girl pursued by a priest when she abducts a child. Written in prose “as primal and denuded as the fells themselves”, according to the Guardian, which called its climax “so gruesome it leaves you feeling a little light-headed”, it took the Portico award for the best novel set mainly in the north of England, at the end of last month.

Myers, who won the Gordon Burn prize for his previous novel Pig Iron, while his novel Richard was chosen as a Sunday Times book of the year, said that winning the Portico “felt like a vindication – a validation” of the effort that went into Beastings, his fourth novel.

I have had so many rejections over the years that now it energises me Benjamin Myers

“Pig Iron wasn’t turned down by publishers – it didn’t get a response from publishers … [Beastings] was turned down by every major publisher in London,” he said. “All the publishers responded quickly and enthusiastically, but they all turned it down. They all responded telling me I needed to rewrite it, what I could do to improve it … One publisher said ‘maybe’, if I considered making it funnier. I thought there’s no possible way the book could be funnier - it’s a very grim, unflinching book, which I appreciate is not for everyone.”

Beastings went on to be published by independent press Bluemoose Books. As well as winning the Portico, the opening chapter of Beastings won the 2013 Northern Writers’ award. The novel was longlisted for this year’s Jerwood Fiction Uncovered prize and shortlisted for the Guardian’s Not the Booker prize, as chosen by readers.

Myers, who is a writer-in-residence on Hadrian’s Wall this winter, said that he has since written another novel, inspired by the true story of the Cragg Vale Coiners, a gang of 18th-century counterfeiters run by “King” David Hartley. This novel has also been turned down by the larger publishers, but Myers remains unfazed.

“I have decided not to send anything to the big publishers, now,” said Myers. “I have had so many rejections over the years that now it energises me.

“I feel like as a writer, I’m from the margins, or the underground – a lot of my heroes and influences are people who are on the edge … so I think ‘why bother to chase [the big] publishers?’” the author said. “Things seem to be working out well. Readers like the book, and it didn’t get a bad review, [so] I think I would rather work with an independent publisher, who gives you priority. It’s independent all the way.”

With a record number of authors applying for emergency financial assistance this year, Myers, who is also working on a series of rural noir crime novels, said his job was not about income. “I don’t think anyone is writing fiction for the money. Because there isn’t any, really. There are other reasons to do it. I’m completely obsessed. It’s more than a job – it is all-consuming.”