Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding has said that writing opportunities across the UK are “very uneven” as she launches a prize for comic writers in the north.
Yorkshire-born journalist Fielding’s ciggie-loving secret diarist first began life as a column in the pages of The Independent before it became a global publishing phenomenon and series of Hollywood films. Now, 31 years later, she has set up the Bridget Jones Prize for Northern Comedy Writing with charity New Writing North to give opportunities to undiscovered writers from the north of England.
At an exclusive Q&A for Independent members at the Institute of Contemporary Arts as part of The Independent’s 40th anniversary celebrations, Fielding discussed her motivation for setting up the prize, which she has also funded.
“It’s a bit uneven, the spread of opportunity for writing in this country. In fact, it’s very uneven,” Fielding told The Independent’s editor-in-chief Geordie Greig at the ICA event on Monday (19 October). “There’s much more opportunity in the South than in the North where I grew up.
“I got so lucky really with Bridget and I just wrote 1,000 words that happened to catch on,” she said. “The idea is it’s for the funniest 1,000, first-person words that stand alone and could be put in the newspaper,” adding that she hopes it will attract entries from “someone who’s being funny, living their normal life”.
The funniest 1,000-word entry, which must be a piece of first-person stand-alone prose, will win £2,000 and writing support from both Newcastle-based charity New Writing North and literary agency Aitken Alexander Associates, which represents Fielding.
Fielding was working as a newspaper journalist when she launched the anonymous column, Bridget Jones’s Diary, in The Independent in 1995. In her first entry, Fielding’s thirtysomething, faux pas-prone creation was born – with Bridget agonising over why her boss/office crush Daniel hadn’t called, moaning about unbearable colleague Perpetua and vowing to give up cigarettes, junk food and men.
The cash-strapped journalist had been asked to write a column about her own life as a single woman in her 30s but turned it down at first. “I was very private, so I said no, but I’ll make something up. It was really sort of spontaneous and it was done in a day,” Fielding told Greig.
She initially thought the column would last just six weeks. “I didn’t tell anyone on the political desk that I was doing it. I didn’t tell my friends,” Fielding continued. “I felt, ‘Why would anyone want to read about how it takes three hours between waking up in the morning and leaving the house, and where was my skirt? Who was I with last night? All that sort of stuff.”
As it turned out, quite a lot of people did. It ran for three years in The Independent, and later returned in 2005 and 2006, with Bridget smoking 5,277 cigarettes, drinking 3,836 alcoholic units, losing five stone two pounds, gaining five stone three pounds and spending 74 days hungover during that time.
The column was adapted into a novel in 1996 before spawning a franchise of books that has sold over 40 million copies worldwide. Bridget eventually became a film star, with four hit film adaptations being made, starting with 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary. Jerry Maguire’s Renée Zellweger took on the role of Bridget, receiving both Oscar and Bafta Award nominations for her performance in the first film and reprising the role in its three follow-up movies.
Last year, Bridget was immortalised in bronze as a commemorative statue to mark 25 years since the first film in the franchise.
The Bridget Jones Prize for Northern Comedy Writing is free to enter, with the winner being announced as part of a ceremony in Newcastle in summer 2027. You can find more details about eligibility and submitting entries on the New Writing North website.
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