Charlotte Higgins on what it's like to NOT win the Samuel Johnson prize

Our chief arts writer was delighted to be shortlisted for a top literary prize, but soon started practising her 'good loser's face'. So what happened when the winner was finally announced?
Charlotte Higgins, circled above, at the Samuel Johnson prize dinner
Charlotte Higgins, circled above, at the Samuel Johnson prize dinner, waiting to hear whether or not she had won. Photograph: Andy Paradise Andy Paradise/PR

In the fortnight or so running up to the presentation of the Samuel Johnson prize, the biggest British non-fiction award, a certain game was played in my household. It involved my boyfriend or I uttering the words "Charles Moore" at deliberately unexpected moments – during washing up, say, or tooth-brushing. The other would then have to break immediately into a smile and burst into enthusiastic applause.

The Charles Moore Game was about limbering up our good losers' faces. I was shortlisted for the prize for my book about Roman Britain, Under Another Sky. The former editor of the Telegraph was shortlisted for the first volume of his biography of Margaret Thatcher. (I don't have anything against the impeccably well-mannered Moore; I do, however, reserve the right to have something against his subject.)

I became pretty good at the Charles Moore Game, though when I tried it out on novelist Philip Hensher (who has won and lost his fair share of literary prizes) he thought my delighted grin and vigorously enthusiastic head movements came out just a touch hysterical.

Being in the running for a literary prize is a curious psychic event. Writing a book is not a sport. Sentences do not reach the page in expectation of laurel wreaths. All that research, all those hours coaxing out the words – that has nothing in common with a baking contest. The literary prize is a competition that you do not enter (you are either discreetly submitted by your publisher or, on occasion, a prize's judges will "call in" your book).

When the news of longlisting came – on my birthday, no less – there was a pleasing feeling of having been plucked as one of 18 from more than 200 books read by the judges, an excuse for a glass of something fizzy, and a conviction that I wouldn't proceed further.

Being shortlisted was another thing: as I read the news on my phone, by the uncanny glow of a Willie Doherty film in a Derry art gallery, I could feel the stakes changing: I was now one of the final six, as they would surely say in melodramatic tones on MasterChef.

Over the next few weeks my mind seemed to split into two opposing camps. Most of me was busily saying to myself: "How lovely to be shortlisted, what a delightful thing in itself, how fortunate to receive this unlooked-for honour." That would sometimes be footnoted by a small meditation on the arbitrariness of literary prizes altogether, and their innate conservatism; the observation that there were plenty of bolder and better books published on both sides of the Atlantic that didn't even get longlisted. "Pets win prizes," a friend had once said – and he meant it crushingly, by way of suggesting that the truly new, the truly avant garde, is rarely recognised by such awards.

Charlotte Higgins
Charlotte Higgins tries out her best 'good loser's face' at the awards dinner. Photograph: Andy Paradise

None the less, a kind of splinter group in my mind would find a way of departing from the party line. I'd start to drift into small fantasies: what my acceptance speech would be like (a thrillingly moving advocacy of the study of classics) and how I'd spend the money (I'd like to state for the record that £200 was earmarked for drinks for my Guardian newsroom colleagues; that'll now have to wait until I decide to enter, and of course win, the lottery).

Then came a rather peculiar anxiety: as the Guardian's chief arts writer, I could be covering the prize as a reporter. There were lots of jokes about the meta-journalism possibilities of this – would I be interviewing myself, friends asked.

More seriously for my own peace of mind, I was in the odd position of knowing precisely how such prizes operate in relation to the media: a small group of correspondents is given the news several hours ahead of the main announcement so that the story can appear in the first editions of the papers; necessarily that knowledge is shared with editors, subeditors, picture researchers and so on, whose discretion is relied upon. In short, there would be good friends in the room who knew the result before I did.

But I wanted to enjoy, if I could, the prize dinner just as if I were any of the other authors; as if I didn't know how the levers were pulled behind the scenes. I hatched a plan to be away from the office on the day of the prize; I even asked my boyfriend to confiscate my phone and laptop for the day (a wrench for a journalist) so that it would be simply impossible to cheat and take a peek inside the Guardian system.

I think, in truth, I knew I hadn't won as soon as I entered the foyer of the Royal Institute of British Architects, where the prize dinner was held, and ran into colleagues. Not that they weren't utterly discreet, just that some people are better at a poker face than others.

Still, had I been anxious that the competing voices in my head were signs of obsessiveness or insanity, the dinner itself helped allay my fears. At my left was seated Peter Straus, my agent, always a good source of scurrilous literary gossip. At my right was Jason Cowley, editor of the New Statesman. Between them, they regaled me with a number of scandalous literary-prize tales. There was one, for example, about the world-famous author, who, minutes after an unfavourable Booker announcement, found himself flanked at the urinals by two judges, and berated them for their poor judgement as they all took a piss.

There was another about a distinguished writer who had banged on and on during a press interview about having been passed over for the Booker, abandoning all shred of dignity and proportion. After several more gossipy tales of toys metaphorically hurled from perambulators by some of our leading literary lights (all male, as it happened) I began to feel that the Charles Moore Game had not been invented in vain.

Across the table was my beloved editor at Jonathan Cape, Dan Franklin, who has seen more awards ceremonies than most, having edited Amis, Barnes, Rushdie and McEwan, inter alia. He was looking, I hope he won't mind my saying, a little confused, if marvellously benificent. I was one of two of his authors shortlisted, the other being Dave Goulson, writer of the splendid A Sting in the Tale.

Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Lucy Hughes-Hallett, who won the prize with her book The Pike. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian

Were that not conflicting enough, on the next table, with their daughters Lettice and Mary, was Dan's wife. She is Lucy Hughes-Hallett, who won the prize with The Pike, her brilliant biography of Gabriele D'Annunzio – a wonderful triumph, as I wrote to Dan and colleagues the next day, for the Franklin if not the Cape family. At some point after Lucy was announced the winner I found myself in a chaotic but merry group hug with a slightly tearful Dan, a deservedly delighted Lucy and William Dalrymple, nominated for his history of the first Afghan war – his fourth longlisting, lord bless him, and first shortlisting.

Here's the funny thing: one does feel like a loser after all of this. As Deborah Orr put it in these pages after her husband Will Self missed out on the Man Booker, "one starts out pleased to be longlisted, and ends up feeling anything other than winning is failure".

Still, there are compensations. In Britain, as we all know, a plucky runner-up is much preferred to a victor. And I saved my old pal and colleague Stephen Moss, tasked ahead of time with meeting the victorious author the morning after the award, from interviewing me for my own paper, which would have been plain weird.

I have learned that the appropriate sentiment on meeting a runner-up (and I feel sure the same goes for football leagues, quiz teams, flower-arranging competitons etc) is to congratulate them for their achievement rather than offer commiserations. The former can be acknowledged by a delighted "thank you"; the latter requires an explanation – "after all, I never expected to win, and I'm so pleased that of all people Lucy did", etc etc, which is true but fatiguing to express. Because the Charles Moore Game takes you only so far. I am afraid the last text message I sent to my boyfriend the day after the prize read: "I am so fed up with being the fucking gracious loser ALL DAY."

Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain by Charlotte Higgins is published by Jonathan Cape at £20. Buy it for £14 at guardianbookshop.co.uk
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/09/charlotte-higgins-not-win-samuel-johnson
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