2021 Writing Award Longlist

Morgan is an African American woman of Caribbean descent from Los Angeles, California. She grew up reading young adult fantasy but longed to cheer on a protagonist who looked like herself. Morgan holds a degree in screenwriting from the University of Southern California. She hopes her writing will

I live in Surrey with my wife and two young children, and work as a freelance Producer/Director for television. I'm a voracious reader, particularly crime and thriller novels.

Nick’s writing journey was unusual. Invited onto the set of a high profile TV show, he witnessed the power of storytelling and was completely hooked. Nobody was more surprised by this than him, and in the last two years he has written a novel (placed 2nd in a national competition), a short story

I am a native of Sheffield, though I grew up largely in the United States. I studied law at Stanford University and now split my time whenever possible between Los Angeles, where I practise criminal defence, and Europe (London and Athens), where most of my family still live. I’m a lover of languages

I'm crazy about writing, technology and quantum physics. I spent over a decade running a youth group, writing code in my day job and novels at night. This is what I love, but there's something more important. I want to get a message out to people who've been through the mill, the ones who weren't

Patrick Joseph King (PJK) is a novelist and short story writer living in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He has worked as a street cleaner, bartender, English teacher, and director of employment programs. Five of his short stories have either won or placed in Canadian Short Story contests. He

Born in Australia, raised a Mennonite in the heart of Amish country, educated at Harvard University, Andrew Hallman now lives in Philadelphia where he works in the rare book trade. His fantasy novel MIRRENWOOD is forthcoming in 2022 from Crossroad Press.

I am an unpublished Australian novelist living in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales. I work full time in the family business and am a mum of three. I've studied at The Writers' Studio and The Australian Writers’ Centre and now I'm working with American editor Emily Heckman.

Virginia Tell grew up in a small town south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and her stories draw upon the life experiences of her ancient grandfather and father, master storytellers. They passed down the oral history of a people who faced the extraordinary challenges of life in Deep South Louisiana, a

Siobhan Bell is a young Scottish artist, creative mind and author whose work probes the complexities of personal choice, identity, mental health, and family relationships in our modern world. Her family moved multiple times as she grew up which engrained in her a love of travel and exploration. Her

Claire is an award-winning blogger at Bookpreneur. Originally from Norfolk, UK, she now lives the US. Having lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico for twenty-seven years, she has worked with victims of domestic violence, helping women to survive the aftermath of abuse. Member: Graduate of Albuquerque

Jaya Padmanabhan is a journalist and columnist, writing the “In Brown Type” Sunday column for the San Francisco Examiner. Her byline can also be found in PBS Next Avenue, Forbes, Medium (Elemental and The Bold Italic), and India Currents. Jaya's collection of short stories, "Transactions of

Hayley Reese Chow is the author of Odriel's Heirs, the 2020 winner of the Florida Author Project. She also has short and flash fiction featured in Lite Lit One, The Drabble, Bewildering Stories, Teleport Magazine, and Rogue Blades Entertainment’s anthology, As You Wish. Until recently though, she’s

MORRIS PANYCH Morris Panych (born 30 June 1952) is a Canadian playwright, director and actor. He was born in Calgary and grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, now making his home in Toronto. He studied at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, and the University of British Columbia where he received a

Having retired from teaching, I have spent much of my spare time writing, hopefully learning from my mistakes and discovering how much I enjoy the writing process, despite its many frustrations. I have been successful in several competitions, mainly in writing Flash Fiction, and my play, "So Quick"

I am a first time author and a full time surgeon. Around ten years ago, I had an idea for an alien world accessed through a child's dreams. Bit by bit the idea grew and I needed to get it out of my head and onto paper. Over the last two years I've had the opportunity and the time to realise this and

Amanda Mack currently resides in Savannah, Georgia where she works in a law office to support her cat, Frankie, and provide her with all of the things she never had growing up. She kept most of her writings to herself until the age of fifteen when she became the youngest staff writer for The Ring

Best described as 'a unicorn in pyjamas', I spend most of my days consuming too much coffee, writing contemporary YA, fantasy and murder mysteries and travelling around my home country of Australia. I am lucky enough to be working as a hiking tour guide in the middle of a global pandemic, which is a

I am a former barrister who was published here and in the US 30+ years ago (WH Allen, Grafton and St Martins Press). I turned to full-time writing when I retired in 2016, since when I have had a series of six legal crime thrillers published by Sapere Books, the seventh due out this autumn. They

Rebecca Danzenbaker is a member of SCBWI and IWWG. Her manuscript, The Colors of My Soul has been long-listed for the Chanticleer CYGNUS award. While running her award-winning photography business in Ashburn, VA, she has published articles in Click Magazine and Macaroni Kid. When she's not editing

Danielle lives in East London with her husband, baby daughter and two inquisitive cats. She studied English at the University of Cambridge. After spending several years working as a bookseller in Waterstones Chiswick, she is now a writer, lawyer and soprano. Danielle is a graduate of the Curtis

Hello! I’m Arianna Kiriakos, and I've been writing as long as I can remember. I completed my first novel at thirteen, and basically haven’t stopped since. I aim one day to be a traditionally published author. My work tends to lean into mysteries with sassy characters and historical or travel

My name is Ben Orlando. I have been writing novels and short stories for the last twenty years. I have published stories in the Bellevue Literary Review, The New Guard, The Tusculum Review, Mystery Weekly Magazine, and others. My manuscripts have been longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Prize

A precocious reader from a young age, I inherited the books of an older cousin. She started me on Nancy Drew (the originals), but I quickly graduated to Agatha Christie. I've loved mysteries ever since, especially those set in another era and, in recent years, those that incorporate fantasy elements

I'm an author who writes stories about humans, pushed to their limits in fantastical worlds. As a reader, I love books that show LGBTQIA+ characters without centering the plot around that single facet of their identity. I also enjoy stories that can show strong characters without reverting to

Hello! I'm a disabled Canadian crime fiction author.

I'm a girl in her twenties with a passion for writing and a dream of one day being published. I have been writing books since I was 6 years old, but this has been the first large novel that I've actually finished, so that's very exciting! I used to spend my summer holidays sat in my room delving

Michael January is a writer for film and television, as well as a travel writer, photographer, and novelist. He is a California native but has lived on the U.S. East Coast, in London and Munich. His travels have taken him across the earth’s curve. As a screenwriter his films have premiered on HBO

I'm a multi-award nominated (and winning) actress and singer from Yorkshire, predominantly working in the West End, but I've always harboured dreams of being a writer. After several other novels in draft stages, this is my first to make it through a full set of edits to potentially go out into the

I am an aspiring writer, living in Brighton, England. Particularly appealing to the BookTok dark academia community, this novel is a mixture of the teenage restlessness found in We Were Liars by E. Lockhart and the wicked characters found in Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. I currently work as a

Ruth Millington is an award-winning writer, passionate adventure world traveller, and creator and host of Ruth Millington's Extreme Holidays Podcast which was rated in the top 10% of podcasts worldwide within two weeks of its launch in September 2021. Read it here: https://bit.ly/39mltgK She has a

I find wonder in how our world works through studying the past to predict the patterns of our future. This might be due to my first passion and career as a weather forecaster, but it certainly does make life more interesting when I’m not hunched over my computer, madly typing to pin down my