Read on behalf of Stephen Gallagher by publisher Peter Crowther
What can I say? You do me a great honour. Unless I didn't win and this is being passed around the bar for a laugh afterwards.
For years I've cultivated the self-image of the moody loner who never gets awards. My outsider status was threatened when Peeping Tom magazine named me their Scaremonger of the Year. I warmed to this appreciation of my writing until I opened the Restraining Order that came with it.
Most years I make my excuses and sidle off before the banquet, giving the awards committee plenty of opportunities to intercept me in the foyer and come up with some semi-transparent excuse that will require me to stay for the ceremony. Opportunities that, I have to say, they've consistently failed to seize.
Today I'm not being evasive, I'm on kid-and-college duties. But I want you to know that creating OUT OF HIS MIND was a lovely experience, and one that felt like a total cheat – show me the writer who doesn't secretly dream of magicking up a new book without the sweat of actually writing it.
I want to thank everyone who's bought the collection and everyone who voted.
Especially I want to thank Peter Crowther, transvestite and war hero, whose idea the collection was and who drew out of me some of the best things in it.