Speaking to the winner of the annual Observer/Faber graphic short story prize is always a highlight of my year, but this time around the experience was especially lovely. Lesley Imgart, whose brilliant broomstick-ridden story Witch Way? we publish today, has entered the competition five times in the past six years, and when she talks to me from her home in Edinburgh, she still sounds amazed finally to have triumphed. “It’s unbelievable,” she says. “It was this thing I just did every year… I keep forgetting I’ve won, and then 15 minutes later, I’ll remember, and feel pleased all over again.” Her verdict on herself: “I am nothing if not persistent.”
Imgart’s story is about the life of a young witch. First, comes witch school, and the struggle to concentrate on maths when she’d rather be casting spells. Then, university (Contemporary Magic Practice BA Hons at the College of Arcane Arts). But what to do with her life once she graduates? Even witches need to earn a living. While her friends all seem gung-ho (“I’m going to focus on my YouBroom career,” says one, mobile phone already in front of his face), she ends up listening to customers’ complaints in a magical hardware shop (“Your self-stirring spoons stir too fast!”). Her magic is on the back burner, performed only for family and friends, or at weddings and birthdays, mainly because it’s cheaper than buying a present.
