Success for an author who helps the others

Stephen May has spent much of his professional life helping others to write.

Such is his passion that, the day after we meet to discuss his new novel, Life! Death! Prizes! He emails to make certain he had made it very clear that he is a “fan of writers”.

“I particularly like being around writers based in Yorkshire and one of the frustrating things about publishing is an assumption that all the good stuff happens in London – or that you have to move there to get on,” May wrote. The email was unnecessary. His CV speaks for itself.

He has been a teacher, Arvon centre manager and is now a literary officer at the Arts Council. It seems that one of the less satisfying careers May has had was the time he was a storyline writer on Emmerdale – perhaps because that was the one job where he wasn’t directly involved in helping others to write.

I first met May over five years ago when his first play, Still Waiting for Everything, was touring. He was still at the Arvon Lumb Bank centre in Ted Hughes’ former house in Heptonstall, helping to run the courses for aspiring writers. Whenever he had a spare minute, he would sit in Ted Hughes’ former library and work on his own novel. The result was TAG.

Published by a small Welsh press, Cinnamon, in 2008, it was longlisted for Welsh book of the year and May assumed he had cracked it. And then, nothing.

“I just assumed that was the way in, but when I’d finished my second novel, even my agent said that they couldn’t sell it,” says May. He is no longer with that agent (no bad blood, just a parting of the ways) but the second novel has been published and is about to be released.

AL Kennedy has called Life! Death! Prizes! “raw, funny, hearfelt”. Others invoke Dave Eggers, Nick Hornby, Kate Atkinson and David Nicholls.

Getting to the point of publication, let alone publication with such high praise, has been a long journey for May and he was always prepared for disappointment.

“I’d been through a lot of this before, with TAG,” he says. “There were several times when it looked like that was going to be published, only for something to go wrong ,” he says. “So with the second book I didn’t let myself get too excited.” With Life! Death! Prizes! due to hit shelves early next month, May can finally relax. He might even allow himself to get excited, with the news that the book is to be released by Bloomsbury in a German translation and in America.

“The response so far has been amazing, and a little overwhelming,” he says.

May’s Life! Death! Prizes!

Life! Death! Prizes! tells the story of 19-year-old Billy whose mother is killed in a street robbery – and who finds himself in the position of carer to his younger brother Oscar.

May’s writing has been described by Willy Russell as “muscular, tender and touching” and the book is due out April 5.