Dr Antonia Thomas has been shortlisted for the Profile Books and Alexander Aitken Ideas Prize for the best debut trade non-fiction proposal from an academic.
Antonia, who is the programme leader for our MA in Contemporary Art and Archaeology, was selected for her proposal Ā Following the Old Red: A Journey through Art, Archaeology and Time.
Based on Antoniaās research into stone-carving and graffiti, her proposal uses the Old Red Sandstone as the bedrock for a series of stories which link Orkney to Greenland, Svalbard, New York, and even Mars.
Tracking between art, archaeology, ecology and geology, Following the Old Red will take readers on a journey into the deep past, and into the deep future; from the Devonian period, hundreds of millions of years ago, to Neolithic Orkney, to the industrial revolution, and the Anthropocene.
Along the way we meet Victorian fossil hunters, geologists, spies, contemporary artists, and archaeologists. Many of these stories are about stone, but most of all they are about time and how everything is connected.
Antonia is joined by Anna McKay (ShipShapes: The Transformation and Afterlives of Britainās Ships) of the University of Liverpool; Danni Holmes (Wonders of the Quantum World) of the University of New South Wales, and Liz David-Barrett (Power Grab: The Rise of State Capture) from the University of Sussex.
All four shortlisted authors will receive guidance from an Aitken Alexander literary agent on the next steps of their proposals, after which the winner will be determined via a judging panel.
Izzy Everington, Editorial Director at Profile Books, said: āI am so pleased to have Anna, Antonia, Danni, and Liz on our shortlist. Their projects reflect the sheer breadth of submissions this year, each taking us on a grand tour, whether that is of ships bound for lives after battle, or of rocks into which history is carved ā sometimes literally; from the realms of corruption politics to quantum physics. Congratulations to our shortlisted authors!ā
