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Posted on 18/11/23 in Author Life

Boardman Tasker Award Ceremony

I had such a ball at the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature ceremony at Kendal Mountain Festival on the 17th of November. I was there because The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd had been shortlisted!

Now in its 40th year, the award commemorates the mountaineers and authors, Pete Boardman and Joe Tasker, who died in a climbing accident on Everest in 1982. It is given each year to a book – fiction, non-fiction, drama or poetry – that best captures new writing about the mountain environment.

Chair of the judges, Matt Fry’s speech this year included this summing up:

“The five books we selected for this year’s prize are not only remarkable for their literary merit, but also for their contribution to the culture and history of mountaineering and its related disciplines. Each book, in some way, was also selected with an eye on the future, and with a nod to the journey that this award has taken so many on since its conception. From the outset of our judging journey, we always wanted to keep in mind the ethos that ran through Peter and Joe’s own writing, that of always looking ahead, pushing boundaries and taking risks, and we hoped they would be pleased to see five equally worthy and boundary-pushing titles selected in this, the 40th anniversary of the award.”

I loved meeting all the shortlisted authors and veteran mountaineer and author, Stephen Venables, who interviewed us all.

Huge congratulations to Katie Brown for winning with ‘Unraveled’, the account of her journey from climbing world champion to despair and back.

Pradeep Bashyal and Ankit Adhikari’s ‘Sherpa’ is a really important book from Nepalis about the people who have made the Himalayan expeditions possible. They indulged my rusty Nepali and Ankit charmed us with a song!

Faye Rhiannon Latham has created a beautiful, haunting work of art in her erasure poetry version of the classic work, ‘British Mountaineers’.

And Leo Houlding’s ‘Closer to the Edge‘ holds all the adrenaline and out-of-body experiences of a climber pushing the boundaries.

It was a huge honour to meet Sir Chris Bonington and Lady Loreto and Joe Tasker’s family, especially Mary McCourt whom I’d met 5 years ago at the Highland Bookshop. She told me she still re-reads A House Called Askival.

Big thanks to the whole hardworking team at the Boardman Tasker Award, Kendal Mountain Festival and Polygon Books for giving me such a lovely experience. This short-listing will always be a career high for me.