An author from Stoke-on-Trent has received a national prize for her short story set in Burslem. 

Lisa Blower's "Blessing in Burslem" won the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize on Thursday with judges praising the text as offering readers "more and more each time you read it". 

It is hoped the currently unpublished story will form part of an upcoming collection which will feature women from each of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent. 

Lisa told Stoke Nub News: "This story is from the point of view of a lady in her 70s. So it is somebody who is very reflective but doing something she never thought she would do - which is to be a model for an art class. 

"It is set in the Burslem School of Art and about her suddenly becoming this model, and thinking about her life and reflecting on that life, and in a way, accepting everything that's happened for her." 

The ALCS Annual Awards, hosted by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society, were presented at the Goldsmiths' Centre in London. 

"Blessing in Burslem" is due to be published at the end of the year and will be featured in Prospect magazine and the Royal Society of Literature's Review. 

Lisa, who is also a lecturer in creative writing at Keele University, is this year working to establish a "literary canon" for the city, compiling a list of "100 books in 100 years" which showcase the city's history as part of the Centenary celebrations. 

She added: "So that was my idea, as part of the 100 books in 100 years, that I would write six women's stories about six women from six towns that had lived there all their lives but something happened that made them see the town or themselves differently." 

"It's wonderful for this to be recognised and I was really pleased because after I had come off the stage I must have had five or six people come up to me who were saying 'oh my grandad was from Stoke-on-Trent' or saying 'I've been doing some work in Stoke-on-Trent' 

"So it was just brilliant because you go to these things in London and expect people not to really know about the place but so many people came up to me afterwards and a couple of people had heard about our Centenary project, 100 books in 100 years."

This is the third of Lisa's short stories to be nationally awarded while "The Miner Birds," which was also written by Lisa, will be repeated in March this year after first being performed at The New Vic Theatre in July 2024. 

Lisa added: "This story was another one that I wrote quite quickly and I've been thinking about writing about women that had lived in one of the towns all their life, and all of a sudden they did something that made them see their town or their themselves differently, and they just do something completely out of the blue and how that would change their life.

"This story was one of the first I'd written for this collection so the hope is I will have another five so there will be six women of the six towns - so this prize is a brilliant starting point.

"'I'm running this centenary project, my play is on in the next couple of weeks, and then this prize has happened so it couldn't be better."

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