A FORDINGBRIDGE author is in the running to win a literary festival award.

Ann Biggins is one of three finalists announced for the Dorchester Literary Festival’s Hall and Woodhouse Local Writing Prize.

One non-fiction and two fiction books in the running.

“We had to take the difficult decision to cancel this year’s festival,” said co-founder, Paul Atterbury, “So it’s wonderful that we’ve still got the excitement of the writing prize.

“The three books are wonderfully diverse, although Ann Biggins’s Losing Jane and Gail Aldwin’s The String Games both address contemporary themes and concerns in powerful ways. Viv Endecott’s book Exploring Englishness is also timely, defining in a most unusual way what it means to be English - from an outsider’s point of view. And it’s fitting that we have three women finalists; reflecting the bulk of this year’s entries.”

Ann began writing ‘Losing Jane’ purely for herself, so was thrilled when she self-published it and found that plenty of other people also enjoyed it. She said: “I am immensely proud of my story, and to have it acknowledged in this way is absolutely fantastic.”