I have alarmingly large piles of books in my living room and my nearest and dearest are already asking whether it means I am cancelling my personal life.

I have agreed, for whatever sins, to be a judge for the Orange Award for New Writers - the comparatively new, self-explanatory adjunct honour to the now well-established Orange.

I am, of course, delighted. I have long thought the arguments over the award's existence were nonsense. All prizes have their rules - whether they be age, gender, race...The Man Booker does not allow Americans. The Orange wants you to be a woman. Deal with it.

The main prize has thrown up some fabulous books - Carol Shield's Larry's Party, Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin, Andrea Levy's Small Island, for instance - even if it ignored Zadie Smith's White Teeth (though it was not alone in that). The corresponding award for new writers is proving correspondingly interesting.

But while honoured to be asked to take on the responsibility for finding a star of the future,I am also slightly alarmed. I am an arts correspondent who is never home - because I am always out at theatre/film/exhibition openings and who belongs to two book clubs whose meetings are always regarded as an excuse for an essay-crisis-style reading binge.

So 60 or so books in the next three months is a challenge.

All I can say, dear first-time writers, is I have pledged to do my best. You will be read.

ends