See Dundee and write

Forget the number of shopping days till Christmas - there are only 13 weeks left before the deadline for the Dundee Book Prize, an award for an unpublished novel set in Dundee. Dundee University, joint organiser alongside the City of Discovery Campaign, says it is still receiving requests for entry forms, suggesting fresh challenges to the nine full-length novels submitted so far.

Co-organiser Carol Pope, the university's press officer, said there had been several hundred requests for forms, half from Scotland, with others from a score of other countries including Japan, Australia and the United States as well as England and Wales. "Some have even made Dundee their holiday destination to help with research." The prize is fortunately not another holiday in Dundee, but Pounds 6,000.