2022 Young Writer Award Longlist

I am a long-time writer and yet-to-be author and I spend more of my time time thinking about fictional worlds than real ones. I've been telling stories since I learned to talk and writing since I could hold a pencil. I write almost exclusively YA fiction, with the odd poem thrown in for fun. The

Before I was the age teachers wanted me to be, I was already craving to learn to read and write. I needed to know what was inside all those books. And I needed to put those stories on paper that were threatening to burst out of me. After they finally taught me, I never looked back. I spent my

Born and raised in the mossy backwoods of Washington (a ripe setting for muddy adventures and gothic atmospheres), I've been telling stories about sprites and sasquatch for as long as I can remember. Now having migrated to the warm coast of the Bay Area, I spend my days working in a cozy videogame

I'm a writer who often forgets the reality of my own world because I am lost in a fantasy one. I'm also a mum to a beautiful daughter (under one) who has inspired me unlike any other source of inspiration. I've been writing ever since I learnt how to pick up a pen. No really, ask my parents. After

I have an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University with distinction. I’m a 2022 IRP mentee. As a long-time agriculture worker turned farm veterinarian, I have drawn from hundreds of hours of working across the UK to inform my prose.

I won my first writing award at the age of six and decided that I aspired to be a starving writer in a garret. Flash forward eighteen years, and I can truthfully say I live by the pen: assistant and copywriter at an animation studio by day, fantasy author and freelance editor by night, and

Born in Columbia, Maryland, Kelly Wruck (under the pen name K. M. Barlowe) soon found a second home in the worlds she discovered in the pages of books. Following high school, she took a gap year to begin writing her debut novel, The Wars of Ice and Plenty, as well as developing a passion for

Kay Mancino is a 19 year-old Creative Writing major from Long Island, New York. Growing up, they realized their voice was loudest when writing stories, so that is what they want to spend the rest of their life doing. In their free time, you will find them crocheting blankets for their dog and

Ian is a passionate storyteller in all of its many forms. In his novels, poems, and short stories, he strives to explore concepts of morality and human willpower, while also examining the different relationships characters have with their own mortality. He lives for the wonderful exhilaration of

Some of my biggest inspirations creatively are Stephen King, Thomas Harris, William Peter Blatty, William Goldman and Kenneth Lonergan. I aspire to one day make these novelists and screenwriters my competition and hope that people will compare me to them favourably. I’m confident I’ll achieve this

I'm a writer with over ten years of experience in crafting fantasy world shenanigans. If you enjoy Dark Fantasy worlds like Dragon Age, Enderal, or the Witcher, I hope you'll find similar enjoyment in my tales of misadventure.

I was born in the small, sleepy town known as Shepton Mallet—a hidden treasure at the heart of South England's Somerset. I moved to Bristol at the age of eight, paving the way for my studies as a Creative & Professional Writing graduate at The University of the West of England. When I’m not busy

Born and raised in London, I've been writing since I was a child. When I was 12 years old and my favourite teacher asked what I was planning to do over the summer holidays, I told her: 'Write a novel!' Although I didn't write a novel that summer, the desire to write has stayed with me. Lockdown was

I have undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University and a MA in Publishing. Story-telling has been embedded into my life from an early age, listening to my parents tell me stories about their lives prompted my interest in the lives of a diverse range

Yvette Naden is a writer and poet born in France 2002, who now resides in the UK. Her work has featured in the Roadrunner Review and the Elmbridge Literary Magazine. When she isn't writing, she can be found trying to resusitate her houseplants.