Writing Award 2022

Your life's a mess, you have the chance to go back and fix it, easy right? Wrong.
Sam Harris has one great skill, making bad decisions he's brilliant at it. With echoes of Midnight Library by Matt Haig, Future Proof is a romantic comedy romp back through the life, love and timeline of Sam.

In a city crumbling away into a lake of fire, 17yo Vara sides with the government who killed her father against a community who just wants peace. To save the lives she risked, she must be more than her test scores indicated. City of Monsters is a dystopian fantasy with neurodiverent representaiton.

In the turmoil of Thatcher's Britain in the 80's a sharp lad with ambitions can get ahead, if he's prepared to pay the cost. Rookie journalist Jude Devlin hooks a big story but has to decide if he's prepared to endanger his workmates and family to land it.

A story of two brothers thrown into the pitiless conflict called “The Great War” when the world went mad. One brother faces a top-class enemy sniper on the front. The other brother faces a pathological narcissist, filled with a lust for revenge, and part of a communist revolt in their home country.

In the year 2211 Sia meets Daniel on the Moon, where they are trained for an exploration of Mars. Their mission is riddled with unexpected complications and unknown feelings. Will they return unharmed? Will love blossom between a Moonlander and an Earthsider, breaking all rules of the Apollo base?

In a Realm where privileged individuals can create material reality in their sleep. A powerful Dream Traveller finds a way to release his imaginings into the Waking World.

Imagine ten ancient, god-like beings from the dawn of civilisation have been trying (and for some time largely failing) to watch over humankind. While they were busy disagreeing over what to do for best, humanity slid ever further into the clutches of an oppressive regime.

Why let the truth ruin the dream...
She is a young woman in a man's world, committed only to career. But then a client offers her a different future. One she never knew she wanted. One she'll never be able to have, as she's lured into a web of lies, forced to fight for the truth, and her sanity.

In a feline world, backbencher Douglas Schnitty wants to help the thousands of homeless cats living in the bins and save the country from bankruptcy. He has six weeks to act after Britain’s first moggy Prime Minister calls a snap election, but he can’t help plotting against her at every turn.

Tom's adventures through history as. unknown to him, his magician father helps him to settle into his new home with his mother and stepfather.

Fran is concerned with only three things in life: her son Bruno, her caravan park and her bird-watching hobby. When the Travellers move into the next field, birds are suddenly found butchered, foreshadowing the disappearance of a local teacher - is there only one way to point the finger of blame?

Twin brother and sister find out they have another father - the biological one - and reject him, but also fear that the father who brought them up as his own will not want them anymore once he finds out the truth.

We don't need another hero. Fortunately, that is not who John Castiblanco is. After a trip to Belize, John hosts an exclusive dinner party for some of the world's more influential people and his encounter with one guest turns his comfortable world upside down.

The Small Museum is a Victorian gothic novel about a cabinet of curiousities. It explores the themes of gaslighting, madness and women's lack of power. Initially set up as a classic gothic tale, the narrative is disrupted by the trial for murder of the heroine.

After 20 years of safe celibacy, newly retired and lost without work, Lisa “inadvertently, drunkenly” spends the night with Dan. A coming-of-age (again) romance about a woman in her sixties working out how to have satisfying sex and what she really wants from a relationship.

She’s a rogue special forces agent trying to outrun her past.
He’s an escapee from the Hermit Kingdom trying to recapture his.
Two lives that should never have crossed are tangled together in the Tokyo underworld.

The Mind of Master Khang is a coming-of-age and legacy story of two foundlings, a ten-year-old homeless boy and an eighty-five year old man in a wheelchair, who help each other understand other people in spite of age differences and the intervention of local authorities.

A vampire has arrived in town and is thirsty for young blood. He opens a free yoga studio downtown near the college campus where he begins his search for the perfect neck. A yoga student becomes alarmed by the instructor's sudden interest in her throat.

You lost a future with the love of your life. But did she leave to save you from your own secret past?

A thriller about a man who runs away from his own murder. Set largely in Hungary, where Michael Butler worked for an international organisation in Budapest and had been helping the Roma leader Paolo Crusesco expose the people trafficking and sex trade of their women. (80,000 words approx.)