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

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

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

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I am an unpublished Australian novelist living in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My writing has been performed on stage and screen. I’ve worked in tv script departments as storyliner, script editor, and writer. My Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing led to two novels on Amazon, one of which was Commended in the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished

Becoming a rock star was always the ambition of Steven. He dreamed of touring the world, being mobbed by fans and living in a vast LA mansion. However, as the years accumulated and his band broke up, he pined for a new creative outlet. He signed up for a Creative Writing course at a local college

Since 2020 I've been lucky enough to have had two stories make the Page Turner Awards longlist and be a finalist. And to have been chosen as a finalist for a third time is absolutely amazing. The idea for my latest submission grew from time spent in a local woodland during lockdown and was written

Alice Deby is a debut author who loves retro rom-coms and writing all night. A former teacher and magazine editor, she now writes full-time, with an ambition to deliver many books for many readers. In 2021, she was Highly Commended in the Page Turner Awards, and a prize winner in the Romance Writers

Kim Gottlieb-Walker is an American photographer and writer living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Over the past 50 years, she has built a distinctive portfolio that includes some of the most notable musicians and personalities of the '60s and '70s. A graduate of UCLA with honors in Motion Picture

J. C. Michaels is an award winning, critically acclaim novelist published in more than twelve languages. His educational background includes physics and mathematics as well as degrees in music performance and neuroscience. His professional work includes more than a decade as an adventure travel

​Danielle graduated from Montana State university in 2012 with a degree in Biology. She experimented with several healthcare related jobs after that, including work in tissue recovery and as a lab technician. Currently she is a middle school science teacher and a volunteer Court Appointed Special

I am Anglo-Irish and have variously been a musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist and in a band supporting acts such as Elton John, Rod Stewart, Gerry Rafferty and many others. I co-wrote a Celtic rock opera for the Edinburgh Festival. As well as this, I have been a journalist, editor and PR

Through the necessary pursuit of supporting myself and my family, the driving forces have been to do what I can to make the world a better place and survive financially; occasionally these two goals have been compatible. I was lucky enough to be college educated with a degree in history and minor in

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

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

As his surname suggests, Jeffrey MacSporran hails from the wet, yet picturesque countryside which is Scotland. Jeffrey started writing as an amateur in 2017 as a way of passing the time whilst amusing his God-children or during long stints away from home. His first foray into writing competitions

Masha Shukovich (she/they) is a writer, poet, storyteller, folklorist, teacher, independent scholar, and intuitive chef with ancestry and indigenous roots in the Balkans; the Mediterranean; and West, Central, and Northeast Asia (Siberia). She is a mother, demigirl, neurodivergent person, practical

After graduating from law school in 2010, Lucien Elliott spent nearly a decade in and out of courtrooms as a practicing criminal defense attorney in upstate New York. He now works as a director of a public legal defense program. Lucien grew up the son of a lawyer who was an elected District Attorney

Louise writes novels, short stories and flash fiction, which have won prizes, placed on shortlists, and have been read out on BBC radio. Her short fiction has appeared in more than twenty print anthologies and magazines. Some of these are also online, links to which can be found on her website. She

Having retired from teaching, I have spent much of my spare time writing, 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", was

Claire is an author of psychological thrillers, with a primary focus on two opposing forces of nature ― darkness and light. Formerly in hotel and catering, and a law enforcement reporter, she loves nothing more than to craft stories about ordinary people in terrifying situations. Her novels owe much

Stevie Turner is a British author of Romantic Suspense, Humour, Paranormal, and Women’s Fiction (family dramas). She won an inter-schools' essay competition at the age of 11, and this gave her encouragement to write further. She has now written 15 novels, 6 novellas, 1 memoir, and 18 short stories

Siobhan Bell is a 22 year old writer, performer and Artistic Researcher, originally from Scotland and now based in Amsterdam. She aims through her creative work to weave together various disciplines- investing how writing and art can be used as a tool for inner work and self realisation. Currently

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

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

Jack Chandler is a member of Jericho Writers. In April 2021, her first children's book was published by Carl Ed Schunemann KG in Germany, but her heart belongs to thrillers. She's writing a thriller/psychological thriller series with returning characters, although each book works as a standalone. Ms