Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have a Winner

You may recall the tizzy into which Zadie Smith sent 850 aspiring writers last year when, as a celebrity judge for the annual Willesden Herald short story competition, she refused to name a winner for the £5,000 prize. She said simply that none of the entries merited the award. Ouch.

This year's judge Rana Dasgupta didn't make the same faux pas--he chose two finalists in addition to the winner, Jo Lloyd. The prize, however, seems to have been scaled back a bit: from £5,000 to, well, £150 plus a Willesden Herald mug. Hmmm....

Does this just reflect our global economic woes? Or Willesden's more sober assessment of the quality of the entries they've been receiving?