Last Wednesday evening the eight talented winners of the 2023 Book Edit Writers’ Prize, run this year in association with Legend Press, read winning extracts from their novels in front of an audience of top literary agents, plus selected family and friends.

Journeying from Arizona to Lebanon, Kent to Sudan, these powerful stories explored everything from grief to gangs, rebirth to rage. Congratulations to them all on a brilliant evening of readings.

THE WINNERS OF THE BOOK EDIT WRITERS’ PRIZE 2023

Emily Abdeni-Holman

Pavan Amara

Joe Eurell

Clare Ramsaran

Marion Shaikh

Stephanie Torrance

Nathanael Wheatcroft-Brown

Rosalind Yarde

The Book Edit Writers’ Prize is a national competition open to unagented, unpublished British and/or UK-based writers from communities underrepresented in publishing. Book Edit Director Emily Pedder said the aim was “to help talented writers from underrepresented backgrounds gain access to the industry in a way that might not otherwise have been possible.”

This year the competition was judged by acclaimed author Deepa Anappara. Speaking about the prize, Deepa said “It was a privilege and a pleasure to read the submissions for the Book Edit Writers’ Prize. There was immense variety in style, genre, and form, and I found each extract to be engaging, entertaining and immersive. My congratulations to the winners and everyone who submitted – I wish them all good luck with their writing.” 

Congratulations to all our winners who will now go on to have individual mentoring sessions with Lauren Wolff-Jones, Commissioning Editor at Legend Press. Huge thanks to Lauren and everyone at Legend Press, to Deepa for judging, to Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone for rehearsing, hosting and everything in between, and to Aidan Walker for dreaming up the prize and for all his support behind the scenes.

For anyone wanting to hear these fabulous writers read from their work, a recording of the showcase and an anthology of the extracts are available HERE.