Listen in: Wellcome Trust Book Prize 2012
The literary elite joined us for a celebration of medicine in literature on Wednesday evening, for the ceremony to award the 2012 Wellcome Trust Book Prize. A combination of canapés, sparkling wine and conversation made for a fantastic evening, hosted by Wellcome Collection.
The shortlisted authors were joined by top writers, publishers and the judges themselves; the award was presented by the chair of the judges, broadcaster Mark Lawson, and the Wellcome Trust’s chairman, Sir Bill Castell.
Thomas Wright received the £25,000 prize for his book, Circulation, a biography of William Harvey who discovered the circulation of the blood.
The evening was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the winner, everyone on the shortlist and the theme of medicine in literature. Armed with a recorder, Holly Story discovered what books our guests read when they’re under the weather, and got some tips on how to get over writer’s block.
Thanks for sharing the recordings from what must have been a fun event.
When it comes to writer’s block, I find writing uncensored gibberish first thing in the morning works for me – it clears the mind of the distracting clutter that gets in the way of the useful ideas, and sometimes a few good words come to me naturally. As it happens, these so-called “Morning Pages” are something I’ve written about myself – see http://alexanderbrown.info/2012/02/15/getting-over-writers-block/