YOU have heard of the Booker Prize and the Whitworth Prize.

You might even have placed bets on which of the six writers on the controversial short list will win this year's Booker award.

But the Award for the Year's Best Unpublished Novel ?

It has just gone to retired Swindon teacher Judith Cranswick, who despite of having penned a string of tales, is still struggling to find an agent never mind a publisher. And for her it is a mark of success.

In fact it is the second time she has won and the third time she has been short-listed.

"Perhaps I should now stop entering the competition," she joked.

This year's prize a certificate and a copy of The Writer's Handbook was presented to her for Watcher in the Shadows, described by judge Ian Pattison as "the rarest of all creatures a thriller that actually thrills."

The award scheme is sponsored by the National Association of Writing Groups. Judith belongs to several local ones. Pattison used to be an Evening Advertiser reporter. His judgement continues: "From the opening page this suspense story grabs the reader and won't let go. It's a genuinely creepy, tingling read packed with menace and malice the sort of novel that is uncomfortable to read but impossible to put down."

And Judith hopes his assessment will take her several steps along the road towards actually seeing her psychological thriller in print.

"If you can show that someone who has skills at judging these things has decided your book is good that assessment is bound to have influence," she said

The problem, she said, is that without a good agent a writer stands little chance of getting further than a publisher's outer office.

And though she has found an agent after four or five attempts, she feels she is not trying very hard.

Judith, who has a grown up son and daughter and lives in Ullswater Close, Liden, taught geography at Headlands and St Joseph's schools, and became hooked on research while studying for her degree. Thorough research, she says, is the novelist's spadework.

She won last year's Best Unpublished Novel prize in the National Association of Writing Groups Awards scheme with another psychological thriller, All in the Mind.

"It had a fantastic review from the judge," she said.

The Evening Advertiser published one of Judith's short stories and others have been read on local radio.

She has netted four first prizes in other national competitions and in June this year was also winner of a Swindon Museum and Art Gallery creative writing prize.

She teaches creative writing to a Swindon group.