Page 4 - The Staunch Test

THE STAUNCH TEST

As a member of BAFTA, I found voting for the awards that year impossible. I
wasn’t comfortable knowing I might unwittingly vote for an actor, director or
movie executive who had been, or would later be, accused of sexual misconduct.
I didn’t want to inadvertently contribute to rewarding anyone who had exploited
their position to harm a woman. I wrote about my concerns in the Guardian and

abstained from voting.

At this pivotal moment in the film industry, I re-evaluated my own work,
accepted I’d been part of the problem and decided to do something to draw
attention to the prevalence of violence to women in popular culture. In early
2018, the Staunch Book Prize was launched — an award for thriller novels ‘in
which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered’.

Why books not film? Simply because in thriller novels, the violence meted out
to women has grown even more prevalent and nasty than in TV and film.
Increasingly graphic and gratuitous physical and sexual assaults, prolonged
torture and terrifying, painful murder were now not only the norm but winning
the big prizes. Novels are also often source material for film and television
adaptations, so the industries are inextricably linked. Equally a book prize felt
like something on a manageable scale. I didn’t seek funding as I knew the idea

was timely and raising money is a slow and painful business — and too much
like asking for permission.

Staunch Book Prize - initial reception

The outraged response from some famous crime writers made the Staunch Book
Prize instantly newsworthy. While I was being personally trolled on social media
by some well-known names, partly thanks to them, word of this upstart new

literary prize quickly sped around the world. Some people were shocked and
surprised that someone had dared to do such a thing, while others completely
misunderstood the prize, seeing it as censorship, a ban on writing or an attempt
to destroy writers’ livelihoods. It was none of these, and as it turned out, by no
means all thriller writers were opposed to the prize. Many welcomed and
entered it. And readers utterly fed up with the thriller genre because of the
escalating violence to women got in touch with thanks, support and donations.
Publishers also quickly came on board, entering titles from their lists which
fulfilled the strict entry criteria — that no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually

exploited, raped or murdered in the work.