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Meet the 2025/26 Emerging Writers Programme Judges

2025-01-06T20:48:28+00:00

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Applicants for The London Library Emerging Writers Programme are selected anonymously by a cross-genre panel of judges. In 2025, they are:

Rishi Dastidar is a poet whose work has been published by the Financial Times, New Scientist and the BBC, amongst many others. His third collection, Neptune’s Projects (Nine Arches Press), was longlisted for the Laurel Prize and a poem from it was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is also editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches Press), and co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). He reviews poetry for The Guardian and is chair of Wasafiri, the leading magazine of international contemporary writing.

Maz Evans is a bestselling, award-winning author. She is the proud creator of the Who Let the Gods Out?, Vi Spy and Scarlett Fife series for children, and Over My Dead Body and That'll Teach Her for adults, which have collectively travelled to 24 countries. Over My Dead Body was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and won the Capital Crime Fingerprint Award for her self-narrated audiobook. Her work for children has garnered over 50 nominations, including the Carnegie Medal, Branford Boase, Books Are My Bag, Waterstone’s Children’s Book of the Year, Indie Children’s Book of the Year and CrimeFest Best Children’s Book. She hardly won any.

Emma Finn is an agent at C&W with a growing list of writers of both fiction and narrative non-fiction. In fiction, she loves gripping thrillers and ambitious, character-driven mystery or suspense with a fresh hook, angle or setting and is drawn to sharply observed knotty novels about families and relationships. In non-fiction she loves to see big ideas books that help us to think about the world today, alternative histories, psychology, anthropology and popular science, memoir, great food writing and genre-blending narrative non-fiction that fuses the author's interests and expertise. Her authors include Aniefiok Ekpoudom, Ellery Lloyd, Laura Kay and Claire Lynch.

Lucy Luck was an assistant at Rogers, Coleridge & White before setting up her own agency in 2006. In 2014 she joined Aitken Alexander Associates and in 2016 moved to C&W. Her authors have been listed for and awarded numerous prizes including the Booker Prize, the Costa Novel Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize, the EFG Sunday Times Short Story Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Encore Award. She is susceptible to a beautifully crafted short story and, in fiction and non-fiction, looks for worlds that have complexity and texture and a voice that is of itself. Her authors include Catherine O’Flynn, Kevin Barry, Sheena Patel, Andrew Michael Hurley and Douglas Stuart.

Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British author whose novel, Butterfly Fish, and short story collections, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch, have won and been nominated for multiple awards. Her journalism has been featured in The New York Times, the Guardian and the Huffington Post and she has also judged various literary prizes, including the Dylan Thomas Prize, the BBC National Short Story Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Director and founder of Black to the Future festival and Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, she was awarded an MBE For Services to Literature in 2021. Her new novel Curandera is published by Dialogue Books.

Johny Pitts is a writer, photographer and broadcaster. He is the founder of the online journal Afropean.com and author of Afropean: Notes from Black Europe, Home is Not a Place with Roger Robinson and Visibility for the Tate. He has contributed words and images for the Guardian, New Statesman, New York Times and Condé Nast Traveller. He was previously co-host of Open Book for BBC R4 and he is the creator and host of the Afropean podcast, funded by National Geographical Society. He has received the Jhalak Prize, the Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing, the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding and the European Essay Prize.

Benjamin Ross is a Golden Globe winning and Emmy nominated film director and screenwriter whose work includes The Young Poisoner's Handbook, RKO281, Poppy Shakespeare, The Frankenstein Chronicles and most recently Testament, the Story of Moses for Netflix. Current projects include film adaptations of The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather, They Went Left by Monica Hesse and two return series, one on the life of St Paul and the other based on events and characters during the English Civil War.

Chris Thorpe is a writer and performer from Manchester whose work includes Status and Confirmation, both with Rachel Chavkin and China Plate, Victory Condition and Always Maybe The Last Time for the Royal Court, The Mysteries with Sam Pritchard and the Royal Exchange, Manchester, The Shape of the Pain with Rachel Bagshaw and China Plate and The Oh Fuck Moment with Hannah Jane Walker. Current work looks at the construction of cultural hierarchies and Iranian pop music in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World with Javaad Alipoor and nuclear disarmament and diplomacy in A Family Business and Talking About the Fire with Staatstheater Mainz and China Plate.

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Meet The 2024/25 Emerging Writers Programme Judges

2024-01-08T11:31:27+00:00

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	Jane Finigan has been an agent at Lutyens and Rubenstein since 2006, becoming a full partner and co-owner of the agency in 2023. Her fiction, non-fiction and food authors include Ned Beauman, Meera Sodha and Claire Fuller and authors she represents have won or been nominated for multiple awards including the Man Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Costa Prize, the Ondaatje Prize and been selected for Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.
	Sophie Hannah is a bestselling crime writer whose books have sold millions of copies worldwide. She won the UK National Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year prize in 2013 and the Dagger in the Library Award in 2023. She is the author of the new series of Hercule Poirot continuation novels, commissioned by Agatha Christie's family and her murder mystery musical, ‘The Mystery of Mr E’ is available on Amazon Prime. She is also a bestselling poet who has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Award, a self-help writer, creator and host of the podcast How To Hold a Grudge, and the founder of the Dream Author coaching programme for writers. She is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge.
	Jenny Hewson joined Lutyens and Rubinstein in 2019, moving across from Rogers, Coleridge & White where she started out as an agent in 2010. She represents a wide range of award winning and bestselling fiction and non-fiction authors from around the world, including Sarah Perry, Melissa Harrison and Christos Tsiolkas. Authors she works with have won or been nominated for awards including the Booker Prize, the Folio Prize, the Women’s Prize, the Costa Novel Award, the Wainwright Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
	Sabrina Mahfouz FRSL is a writer and performer, raised in London and Cairo. She's worked in theatre for over a decade. Her cross-genre show A History of Water in the Middle East played at the Royal Court Theatre and she was an inaugural writer-in-residence at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, co-writing an adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Her debut non-fiction book is These Bodies of Water: Notes on the British Empire, the Middle East and Where We Meet. Her poetry collection, How You Might Know Me (Out-Spoken Press), was a 2017 Guardian Best Summer Read and she was an essay contributor to the award-winning anthology The Good Immigrant (Unbound). Sabrina has edited anthologies including The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write (Saqi), which was a 2017 Guardian Book of the Year.
	Amber Medland’s forthcoming book Attention Seeker: The Truth About ADHD will be published by Dialogue Books in Spring 2025. Her debut novel Wild Pets was published by Faber in 2021. Since then, she has written for various publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review and the London Review of Books. She was on the London Library Emerging Writers Programme in its first year.
	Nii Ayikweii Parkes is a Ghanaian-British producer, social commentator and writer who has won acclaim as a children's author, poet, broadcaster and novelist. Winner of multiple international awards including Ghana’s ACRAG award, he is the Senior Editor at flipped eye publishing, a trustee of the Caine Prize and serves on the editorial board of World Literature Today. He has served as a judge for literature prizes including the Commonwealth Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize and the Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize. He is a fellow of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University and his latest book is Azúcar, a novel.
	Chris Power is the author of Mothers, a collection of short stories, and the novel A Lonely Man. His fiction has appeared in the Stinging Fly, Granta and the Dublin Review. He has written for the Guardian, London Review of Books, Sunday Times, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He presents Open Book on BBC Radio 4 and is currently working on a novel.

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Emerging Writers Programme 2023/24 Cohort

2023-06-28T10:07:36+00:00

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Meet the 2023/24 Cohort of the Emerging Writers Programme

We are delighted to announce the newest cohort of our Emerging Writers Programme, which supports early-career writers and is now entering its fifth year.

40 participants were selected from a field of almost 1,400 applicants, a record-breaking number, by a panel of judges comprising, poet and playwright Caroline Bird, screenwriter and playwright Moira Buffini, non-fiction writer Travis Elborough, novelist and short story writer Zoe Gilbert, novelist Ayisha Malik, and literary agents at Aitken Alexander Emma Paterson and Chris Wellbelove.

The emerging writers hail from across the UK, from Edinburgh to Brighton, including Northern Ireland and Wales, spanning an age range from early twenties to early seventies. This year’s cohort is working on a diverse array of projects, taking us from Iraq to Hong Kong, India to Ukraine, gothic fairytales to murder mystery, Haitian revolution sci-fi to time-travelling ninjas, cheese, wine, lotteries and luxury, cannibalism, hirsutism, and kleptomania. Also, for the first time, the programme welcomes two new genres: food writing and translation.

Of the 40 writers, nine are working on non-fiction, including five memoirs and three food writing projects. Eight are novelists, seven are writing for stage/screen, five are poets, five are writing for children or YA, four are short story writers and two are working on translations.

Get to know our 2023/24 Emerging Writers:

AD Aaba Atach is a media and communication strategist, with a background in politics and human rights. A Clarendon Scholar at the University of Oxford, she studies the contemporary Middle East. She was a finalist for the #MerkyBooks and Penguin Random House UK's New Writers' Competition in 2019. @IAmAnaDiamond

Sara Aghlani is an Indian Iranian artist living in London. Her background is in film and television. Recently she has undertaken various illustration courses and is currently developing a collection of poetry. Instagram: @saltypheasant

Dr Noga Applebaum is a Jewish writer and lecturer specialising in children’s literature. She is twice winner of the London Writers Short Story competition and has published a monograph on representations of technology in young adult fiction. She is working on a YA novel set in the Hasidic community.

Carole Aubrée-Dumont is a France-born writer living in Brighton. Her memoir-in-progress was shortlisted in the Mslexia Memoir Competition 2020. It is the story of how the diagnosis of her son’s speechlessness made her confront the silences in her French family. Instagram: @caroleaubreedumont

Jess Barnfield works in audio publishing and lives in South London. Originally from the Midlands, she has lived and studied in Paris, Edinburgh and Cambridge. She was highly commended for the Bridport Prize First Novel Award in 2022 and is currently working on her first novel. Instagram: @jkbfield

Sam Baxter is an aspiring screenwriter and a recent finalist in the SWN TV Pilot Screenplay Competition (Spring 2023). During the day, Sam works as a cyber security engineer, but their true passion lies in writing character-driven screenplays for TV and film. Instagram: @sambo5092

Olga Braga is a playwright and screenwriter. She also does stand-up comedy, having performed at some of London’s most popular comedy clubs including Backyard Comedy, Top Secret, the Comedy Store, Camden Comedy Club and Vauxhall Comedy Club. Instagram: @olga__braga. Twitter: @OlgaBraga6

Rachael Li Ming Chong is a writer, teacher and social entrepreneur. In 2022 she received a Let Teachers SHINE Award, and a Literature Matters Award from the Royal Society of Literature. She is a winner of The Poetry Archive’s Word View 2021 Competition and a graduate of the HarperCollins Author Academy. Twitter: @rhubarbpostcard

Louise Conniss is from Yorkshire and studied History at Newcastle University. She now lives in London and is writing a middle-grade series where malevolent fairies bring chaos to Victorian London.

Nicole Davis is a freelance creative producer, podcaster and writer. She commissions short films for BFI NETWORK, moderates events and panels, and recently produced the storytelling anthology podcast ‘Never Told’ with Brock Media. She lives in London. Twitter: @stonecoledfox

Yiota Demetriou is a third-generation British Cypriot multimedia artist, educator, writer, and multisensory designer. Her award-winning artwork, which explores the intersection of technology, art, and human connection, has been exhibited across the EU, featured on BBC Radio, and in the Bookseller. She is writing creative non-fiction about the experiences of Cypriot women in the diaspora. Twitter: @yiota_demetriou. Instagram: @interactive_storytelling / @sapiopetrichor

William Yamaguchi Dobson is a recovering barrister, full-time dad and husband, and writer of middle-grade fiction. He is working on a funny action-adventure series set in an alternate feudal Japan and has been shortlisted for The Bath Children’s Novel Award. He also writes stage plays and screenplays. Twitter: @WYDobson1

Timothy Fox is originally from Texas. He received a Houston Press Theatre Award for his play The Whale; or, Moby-Dick and a Vault Festival Spirit Award for his play The Witch’s Mark. His writing has appeared in, among others, Gordon Square Review, Passengers Journal, Funicular Magazine and New Writing Scotland. Twitter: @timothy_fox_ Instagram: @timothy_fox_

Chris Fite-Wassilak is a writer and critic. He is a contributing editor of ArtReview, a regular contributor to e-flux Criticism and Art Monthly, and his essays have appeared in The Quietus, Vittles, and The Microbiopolitics of Milk (Sternberg, 2023). Twitter: @cfitewassilak

Maryam Garad is a British-Somali actor and writer from London. Her writing explores belonging and the nuances of marginalisation. She was part of Omnibus Theatre’s Engine Room, where she performed the beginning of her debut play REPARATIONS. She is a recipient of Bush Theatre's Bloom Bursary and part of Soho Theatre's Writer's Lab. Twitter: @maryamgarad_

Yanita Georgieva is a Bulgarian poet and journalist. She received the Out-Spoken Prize for Page Poetry and is a member of the Southbank New Poets Collective. You can find her work in The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, bath magg, and her debut pamphlet is forthcoming with Broken Sleep in 2024. Twitter: @georgievayani. Instagram: @yanigorgonzola

Mark Henstock has always worked in communications. For charities, he managed award-winning campaigns that raised millions of pounds for causes ranging from homelessness to international development. He is writing non-fiction around the themes of history, probability and destiny. He lives in London. Twitter: @MarkHenstock1

Marissa Mireles Hinds is a poet, filmmaker, writer, curator, artist, founder of Creative Until Death and co-founder of Babes in Development. She featured in the Dazed x Circa's Class of 2022 for her short film climate change but make it (pop!). In 2022, she won Out-Spoken’s Best Poetry in Film Award and the Bergstrom Studio Writers Grant. Twitter: @sanseriif. Instagram: @sanseriif

Margaret Morrison worked in corporate information before spending many years immersed in confectionery. She’s been a freelance translator for five years in commercial work but is increasingly moving into literary translation. Her interests include French, comic books, French comic books, genre literature and foraging. @mmmtranslation

Georgia Myers is a fiction writer from Hackney, whose short stories have been published by Influx Press and longlisted for the Mslexia prize. Previously, she studied Art History, worked at the BBC, and taught creative writing. She is currently writing a quirky historical novel.

Esmé Hicks is a born and bred Londoner and filmmaker. She co-produced All My Friends Hate Me (2021) and has worked in production on features such as Femme (2023) and The End We Start From (in post-production). She is now focussing on creating her own work.Twitter: @EsmeHicks.Instagram: @esmelarissa

Preeti Jha is an award-winning reporter. She worked as a political journalist for the BBC and a foreign correspondent for Agence France-Presse, before going freelance to write about democracy, gender, and civil resistance. After a decade in Asia, she returned to London last year to write her first novel.Twitter: @PreetiJha

Monica Kam is a lawyer and writer from Hong Kong. She was a recipient of Spread the Word’s London Writers Award 2022. Her fiction and poetry have been shortlisted for the Comma Press 2023 Dinesh Allirajah Prize and commended by Ambit Magazine. Monica is currently completing a collection of short stories set in Hong Kong.Twitter: @kam_monica.Instagram: @monicakam

Rosie Kellett is a theatre, TV and food writer from Derbyshire. She has predominantly worked in theatre, with her first play Primadonna selected for the 2016 VAULT Festival, London. After ten years of working in the food industry as a chef, baker and project manager, she is now developing her first cookbook proposal.Twitter: @rosieakellett.Instagram: @rosiekellett

David Lowe works in London at an in-house creative agency. He’s a lover of all things monstrous and magical and is currently writing his first fantasy novel.

Lia Martin is an English-Romanian writer from London. She has worked in state secondary schools for a decade and recently graduated from Birkbeck with an MA in Creative Writing. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the Bridport and longlisted for the Brick Lane short story prizes She is currently working on a polyphonic novel.Twitter: @liaesthermartin

Ellen McAteer is a poet and songwriter. They won a Waterstones Refugee Week poetry competition, a BBC Download songwriting competition, and completed a Goldsmiths MA in Creative and Life Writing. Their work explores women's voices, alcoholism, and psychogeography and their pamphlet Honesty Mirror has been published by Red Squirrel Press.Twitter: @ellenmcateer.Instagram: @ellenmcateerpoet.Facebook: /ellenmcateer

Avril Millar is an engineer, physicist, businesswoman, board advisor and writer. She has changed careers five times, but always with the core value of making a difference, and still works full-time at 71. She is mother to two grown-up children, one a retired professional sportsman, the other a successful CEO, and grandmother to three.Twitter: @avrilmillar.Instagram: @Avrilmillarofficial / @avrilmillar

Helena Pickup is writing a non-fiction book on luxury, power and catastrophe. After a first degree in History at Oxford University and a Masters in Art History, she trained as a curator and has lectured at Sotheby’s Institute of Art for over ten years. Helena also writes historical and fantasy fiction.

EJ Robinson is a London-based writer of fiction with degrees in Theatre and Victorian History. Her work pinballs between magical realism for children and historical fiction for adults. She has lived in England, Ireland and Japan, and is working on a middle-grade series that draws from global folklore.Twitter: @AiRobinson

Lydia Sabatini is a London-based playwright and screenwriter originally from Essex. She was part of the Bush Theatre’s Emerging Writers Group 2021/22, the Traverse Theatre’s Breakthrough Writers: In Residence Programme 2022/3 and the Mercury Theatre’s Playwrights scheme 2022/3. She will be using this programme to develop film screenplays.

Kumyl Saied is a British-Arab Screenwriter who studied at the NFTS in 2022. His writing portfolio consists of feature films that explore longing, grief and mental illness. Family dysfunction serves as the glue that holds Kumyl's work together, be it through blood splattered horror or intimate drama.Instagram: @kayzone93

Molly Pepper Steemson is a writer and sommelier from London. She is the author of Very Short, a Substack series of 100 100-word stories. Her work is mostly concerned with food, drink, adultery, viscera and, occasionally, death.Twitter: @SteemsonMolly.Instagram: @molly.pepper.steemson

Madeline Heather Stephens did an English degree and a Masters degree in Renaissance Literature, at York. She has worked in fundraising and political campaigning for charities. An admirer of comic fiction, she hopes to write a novel that will make people laugh.

Stacey Taylor is a writer from Cardiff. She has an MA in English and Creative Writing and loves reading and writing in different genres. She was recently longlisted for the Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers’ Prize. She is currently working on a YA novel.

Helena Tebeau grew up in Warsaw, Poland. She studied English at Swarthmore College in the US and received her MSc in Behaviour Economics from LSE. Living in London, she now works in life sciences consulting and translates Polish literature, exploring the subversion of femininity and motherhood in modern day interpretations of folklore and fairytales.Instagram: @helenaclairexx

Airy, a fashion stylist and drag queen, began their career in fashion writing for i-D. They were fashion director at Notion for three years before going freelance. Between styling for celebrity clients, they’re working on their first novel, a fictionalised account of their childhood in a Christian fundamentalist doomsday cult.@airysomething

Catherine Wilson Garry is a poet and writer based in Edinburgh. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Another Word for Home is Blackbird, was recently published by Stewed Rhubarb Press. Her writing has been published by organisations including Extra Teeth magazine, The Scotsman, BBC Radio 4 and The British National Gallery.Twitter: @CWilsonPoet.Instagram: @CWilsonPoet.Website: cwilsonpoet.co.uk

Adam Wynne studied English at Oxford University and is an alumnus of the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course. He has worked in business and government. Adam has a passion for thrillers - both contemporary and historical - and especially those with a dark comedic edge.

Tian Yi lives in London and writes weird short stories about families and hauntings. She has received support from the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference and Hedgebrook. She graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, where she was awarded a Sophie Warne Fellowship.Twitter: @tianyiwriting

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The 2023/24 Emerging Writers Programme Judges

2023-01-25T13:23:18+00:00

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Caroline Bird is a poet and playwright. Her sixth collection, The Air Year, won the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2020 and was shortlisted for the Polari Prize and the Costa Prize. Her fifth collection, In These Days of Prohibition, was shortlisted for the 2017 TS Eliot Prize and the Ted Hughes Award. As a playwright, Bird has been shortlisted for the George Devine Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her Selected Poems, Rookie, was published in May 2022.

Moira Buffini is a screenwriter and playwright. Her plays include: Welcome to Thebes and wonder.land for the National Theatre; Dying for It and Marianne Dreams for the Almeida; Loveplay for the RSC; and the Olivier Award nominated Dinner and Olivier Award-winning Handbagged, both enjoyed successful transfers to the West End. Her screenplays include Tamara Drewe, Byzantium, Jane Eyre and The Dig and she is co-creator and writer of Harlots for ITV and Hulu.

Travis Elborough is an author and cultural commentator. His many books include The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus; The Long-Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records; Wish You Were Here, a survey of the British beside the seaside, A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution and Through the Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles. Atlas of Vanishing Places won Illustrated Book of the Year at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards in 2020.

Zoe Gilbert's novels are Folk, which was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and adapted for BBC Radio, and Mischief Acts. Her short stories have been published in anthologies by Comma Press, appeared in publications including The Stinging Fly, Mechanics' Institute Review, and the British Fantasy Society Journal and won awards, including the Costa Short Story Award. She is co-founder of London Lit Lab with Lily Dunn, and the co-editor of A Wild and Precious Life, an anthology of writers in recovery.

Ayisha Malik is the author of the critically acclaimed novels, Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, The Other Half of Happiness, This Green and Pleasant Land and The Movement. She was a WHSmith Fresh Talent Pick, winner of The Diversity Book Awards and was shortlisted for the Asian Women of Achievement Award and Marie Claire’s Future Shapers Awards. She has written a re-telling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park – part of Hachette’s Awesomely Austen children’s series – and the children’s book, Seven Sisters.

Emma Paterson is a Director of Aitken Alexander Associates and a member of the Booker Prize Foundation Advisory Committee. She was included in British Vogue’s 2021 list of the 25 most influential women and named one of Britain’s most influential people of African, African Caribbean and African American heritage by Powerlist. She represents literary fiction, non-fiction and poetry and her authors include Bernardine Evaristo, Mary Jean Chan, Rachel Long, Natasha Brown, Susanna Moore, Olivia Sudjic, Emma Dabiri, Shon Faye, Mona Chalabi and Sam Knight.

Chris Wellbelove is a Director of Aitken Alexander Associates and Head of the Book Department.He represents fiction, nonfiction and poetry and his authors include Daisy Johnson, Evie Wyld, The Secret Barrister, Kevin Jared Hosein, Vanessa Onwuemezi, Andrew McMillan, Kayo Chingonyi, Liz Berry, Jonathan Liew, Matthew Green, Grace Blakeley, Wayne McGregor and Ita O’Brien. His authors have won or been shortlisted for prizes including the Booker Prize, Dylan Thomas Prize, Waterstones Book of the Year, Forward Prizes, TS Eliot Prize and the Wainwright Prize.

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Emerging Writers Programme 2022/23 Cohort

2022-06-22T09:09:10+00:00

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Forty participants were selected from a field of almost 950 applicants by a panel of judges comprising YA novelist and essayist Yassmin Abdel-Magied (Chair), non-fiction writer Simon Garfield, playwright and novelist Nell Leyshon, poet Rachel Long, screen and children's writer John McNally and literary agent Eli Keren.

This year’s cohort is worked on a diverse array of projects. Spanning the globe from the US to India, the Philippines to Israel, France to Trinidad, they explore the Troubles and the Arab Spring, twelfth-century York, nineteenth-century Northumberland and present-day London.

Read the 2022/23 New Voices Rise anthology:

The 2022/23 Cohort of the Emerging Writers Programme are:

Jasmin Allenspach is a Swiss writer and award-winning theoretical physicist living in London. She writes literary fiction in a no-man’s land between languages and cultures, exploring loss of identity, homeland, queerness, and grandmothers. When not dissecting words or equations, she trains in advanced classical ballet. Instagram: @jasmin.allenspach

Ettie Bailey-King works as an inclusive communication consultant, helping organisations with anti-oppressive language and ethical storytelling. She writes poems and short stories about activism, disability, neurodivergence, sexual consent, online identity and the dark side of influencer culture. She’s working on a non-fiction book about anti-oppressive language, and a novel. Twitter: @ettiebk

Melanie Banim is a writer from Liverpool. She studied English at Leeds and works in higher education, music and mental health. Her poetry was selected for City of Light exhibition 2019, her prose shortlisted for the Bath Award and, in 2021, her poem ‘Knocking Shop’ won Sentinel’s first prize. Twitter: @Melanie__Writes, Instagram: @melanie___writes

Katie Byford is a former Barbican Young Poet and was the winner of the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition in 2020. Her first pamphlet, He Said I Was a Peach, was published in 2021 with ignitionpress. Her work has been published in Magma, bath magg and Modern Poetry in Translation. Twitter: @ByfordPoet, Instagram: @byfordkatie

Anna Carling is a London based writer currently working as a curator and studying for an MFA in Creative Writing. Growing up she lived in London, Belfast, Manchester, Co. Tyrone and York. Her writing is very influenced by her Irish heritage and a sense of place. @annajanecarling

Melanie Carvalho is an artist and writer who also edits obituaries for the Guardian. Her first novel, Xim, was longlisted for the inaugural Cheshire Novel prize, and her artwork includes a film about a blob living within World of Interiors magazine, and an expedition in search of tropical Scotland. @MelanieCarval14

Patrick Cash holds a Masters in Creative Writing from Oxford and spent three months as writer-in-residence at Shakespeare & Company, Paris. His writing has been selected for the BBC Drama Room and included in publications such as The London Magazine. He is currently working on a short story collection, Nightlife. @paddycash

Fatima Cham is a British West African student from London with a penchant for giving people random historical facts. She is an Avatar: The Last Air Bender enthusiast, big dreamer and self-proclaimed theorist who wants to impact the world in some shape or form. Instagram: @chamgrams, Twitter: @chamism

Yasmine Dankwah is a British-Ghanaian writer and performance poet born, raised and based in South London. Her work explores how resistance can be a springboard for joy. She was part of the VAULT New Writers Programme, Soho Writers Lab and was also a Roundhouse Poetry Slam Finalist. Twitter: @yasmined77, Instagram: yasmine___7

Bryn Davies is from Scotland and lives in London. He makes work about forgetfulness, dispossession, restitution and care.

Jessica Edwards is a Queer writer and director. Her work has appeared at the Soho Theatre, Almeida and Arcola among others. In 2021, she was awarded a DYCP grant from the Arts Council to support her writing. She is currently writing her first play and developing a number of ideas for TV. Instagram: @jsaedwards

Eve Ellis is originally from the US and now lives in London. She earned an MA in Creative Writing and Education from Goldsmiths and was a finalist for the Women Poets Prize in 2020. Her poems have appeared in Magma, And Other Poems, and Bare Fiction. Twitter: @eveellis14

Pacifica Goddard accidentally gave birth to her son on her bedroom floor with only her stunned husband there to catch him. She thinks it is an excellent metaphor for how she writes - month after month of plodding, diligent effort culminating in seemingly sudden and surprising results. She writes fiction and creative non-fiction.

Miriam Gold teaches Art and Photography in a secondary school in east London, where she lives with her family. A London native, she has an MA in Fine Art and a BA in History and Politics. Using collage, photography, and drawing, she makes graphic stories and illustrated essays. Instagram: @miriamgold

Soria Hamidi is a writer based in London. She was selected for the Kiln Theatre Young Writers Programme, the Vineyard Theatre Literary Programme and Kali Theatre Workshops 2021/22. Her writing explores home & belonging, gender & sexuality and justice. Instagram: @soriahh, Twitter: @HamidiSoria

Annie Hodson is a queer scriptwriter and playwright from York, now based in London. With work shortlisted for Channel 4 Screenwriting, BBC Writersroom, the Papatango Prize, and the Funny Women Writing Award, Annie is currently writing a bilingual English/Irish fantasy script set in Donegal. Twitter: @Annie_Hodson

Zia Holloway is a screenwriter who specialises in creating rich worlds, and characterful stories. She is a Script Angel scholar, the winner of the BBC Writersroom Welsh Writer Award and has original tv series in development with The Ink Factory, Studio 21 and World Productions. She works across a range of mediums including television, film, and theatre. Instagram: @ziaholloway

Gayathiri Kamalakanthan is a Tamil poet and facilitator. Their work explores the shapeability of the future, decolonial inheritance and Tamilness. Gayathiri won the Primadonna Prize for fiction 2021 and is currently working on their debut verse-novel and a collection of poems under the mentorship of Griots Well. @unembarrassable

Inigo Laguda is a Yoruba-British writer and musician from Hertfordshire. His music has appeared in The Serpentine, Venice Biennale and 180 The Strand. His nonfiction has appeared on Netflix and The Metro. His short stories have been longlisted for The Commonwealth Short Story Prize and received special commendation for The Guardian & 4th Estate 2021 Prize. @SaveInigo

Nicole Lee was born in Kuala Lumpur and educated at Malvern and Oxford. She has worked as a banker in Hong Kong and London and now works in biodiversity. She has been published in numerous online journals. Her work explores the experience of the Chinese diaspora, time, memory and displacement. Twitter: @nicolewriterly

Fatima Luz Naeema is a London-based writer of Arab and Southeast Asian heritage. She is interested in themes of womanhood, plural identities and conceptions of freedom, particularly told through the beauty, love and pain in ordinary lives. Fatima is currently working on short stories and her first novel. http://fatimaluznaeema.com, Instagram: @fatimaluznaeema

Temi Majekodunmi is a trained actor from East15 Acting School. His debut play The Life of Olu ran at Soho Theatre as part of the Soho Rising Festival in 2022. He has been part of programmes with Kiln Theatre, Almeida Theatre and Soho Theatre. Twitter: temi.majekodunmi, Instagram: temi.majekodunmi

Harriet Matthews is a fiction writer from London. She has a BA in English with Film Studies from the University of Exeter and is writing her first novel. She has spent the last few years working at an arts library and is interested in reading, photography, history and cinema. Twitter: @H_L_Matthews, Instagram: @harriet_matthews

Carla Montemayor is from Manila, Philippines. She works in politics and communications, most recently on migrants’ rights. An alumna of the London Writers Awards 2021, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize 2022, Specimen Prize 2021 and the Life Writing Prize 2020. She is working on a history of storytellers in her family. Instagram: @camon_now

Sharanya Murali is a lecturer and writer living in west London. She was a Tin House Workshop participant (2022), and a London Writers Award recipient for fiction (2021). She is a reviews editor at Full Stop Magazine. Twitter: @soonamahal

Leeor Ohayon is a writer from London based in Norwich, where he is studying for the MA in Creative Writing at the UEA. Leeor is the 2021 winner of the RSL’s V.S Pritchett Prize and the Leicester Writes Prize and was shortlisted for the Brick Lane Book Shop Prize. @LeeorOhayon

JP Pangilinan O’Brien is a teacher and writer from West London. He is currently working on a connected collection of short fiction which deals with issues of diaspora, belonging and identity. @JPPangilinan7

Thomas Peermohamed Lambert was born in London in 1997. He read History & Modern Languages at Pembroke College, Oxford. He has lived in and written from Buenos Aires, Milan and Valencia, and when he isn’t writing fiction, he works as a freelance journalist for a number of international publications.

Dr. Michael Pourfar studied art history and interned at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Tower of London before turning to a career in medicine. He is an academic neurologist from New York, currently living in London with his wife, two children and a pandemic puppy.

Gita Ralleigh is a writer, poet and doctor born to Indian immigrant parents in London. Her short fiction has been published by Wasafiri and Bellevue Literary Review among others. She holds an MA in Creative Writing, an MSc in Medical Humanities and teaches creative writing to undergraduates at Imperial College. @storyvilled

Electra Rhodes is an archaeologist whose short prose has been widely published, most recently in Parthian Press’ anthology An Open Door - Travel Writing for a Precarious Century. Current projects include a hybrid nature/family memoir and an intersectional biography of the British landscape. She also teaches nonfiction for Crow Collective. @electra_rhodes

Melissa Richards is a Trinidadian writer based in London. She has worked as a journalist and columnist in the Caribbean and in publishing in New York and London. She has an MA in English and will shortly complete an MA in Creative Writing, both from Goldsmiths University. She is working on her debut novel.

Kimberley Sheehan is from Essex and was a teacher before completing a MA in Publishing and Creative Writing. She is the Campaign Manager for Reading Partners at national charity, The Reading Agency. She was also an Events Coordinator and then Co-Chair for the Society of Young Publishers London Committee (2017-2020). Twitter: @Kimberley_SH

Yvonne Singh is a journalist, editor and writer. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Observer, The Mirror and The London Evening Standard, among others. She was awarded second prize in the SI Leeds Literary Prize 2018 and was a judge for the 2020 competition. She teaches both narrative non-fiction and journalism at City Lit. Twitter @lisa_singh71

Megan Smith is from Northumberland. She moved to London in 2014 to pursue a career in theatre and TV and writes alongside this, learning story as she goes. She is a Miniver Theatre Monologue winner, a quarterfinalist for The Academy Nicholl Scholarship and was selected to be produced by Kickitdown Productions.

B R Rose was born and raised in Goldsboro, North Carolina and has lived in London since 2013. Recently awarded her PhD in Creative Writing from Kingston University, her work explores the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and disability. She is currently finishing her debut novel about a black castrato. Instagram: @rosecolouredwriter

Jack Stanley is an East London-based playwright whose work tries new ways of telling stories on stage. He has had a script performed with HighTide, taken part in the Royal Court Theatre’s Introduction to Playwriting group, and is staging his new play extract with Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass at Latitude Festival. @JChesterstan (Twitter)

Sarah Stribley lives in London and has a degree in English Literature from the University of Sussex. She has been a theatre producer for the last twelve years and writes children’s historical fiction. She is working on her first novel about a platypus and WW2. Twitter: @Sarah_Stribley

Grahame Williams is from County Down and currently lives in London. His fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly, The Letters Page and, most recently, Winter Papers. His story ‘’98, ’99’ was runner up in the Wild Atlantic Words short story competition and was subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Twitter: @jgjgwilliams

Eli Zuzovsky is a writer, director, and journalist studying for an MSt in Modern Languages at Oxford. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Harvard with a BA in Filmmaking and English. Zuzovsky’s thesis film was shortlisted for an Israeli Academy Award. He recently made the Israeli Forbes list of 30Under30.

VIEW THE 2021/22 COHORT and ANTHOLOGY

VIEW THE 2020/21 COHORT and ANTHOLOGY

VIEW THE 2019/20 COHORT and ANTHOLOGY

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Most Borrowed Books of 2021

2022-02-24T16:47:02+00:00

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The newly compiled list of the most borrowed books of 2021 reveals some interesting insights about London Library members' recent reading habits.

Top of the list was Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (borrowed 16 times), closely followed by Philip Hoare's Albert and the Whale (14 times) and Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet (13 times). In fourth place - and the top biography - was volume 1 of The Diaries of Henry ‘Chips’ Channon, edited by Simon Heffer (borrowed 11 times). The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne, Satnam Sanghera’s Empireland, and Marina Warner’s autobiography Inventory of a Life Mislaid, tied for fifth place, having each been borrowed 10 times during the year.

Over 50,000 books were loaned in 2021 and honourable mention must be made of titles that were acquired late in the year but still made it onto the most borrowed list. Sebastian Faulks’ latest novel Snow Country did well (borrowed 7 times since September), but this year’s “Flying Off the Shelf Award” goes to historian David Kynaston’s On The Cusp. Acquired in September 2021 it has been borrowed no fewer than 9 times in under four months, placing it in joint sixth place in spite of its relatively late arrival on the Library’s shelves.

The full list of books borrowed more than five times in 2021 can be viewed below.

Most Borrowed Books List

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Meet the 2022 Emerging Writers Judges

2022-02-16T11:27:16+00:00

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Applicants to the 2022 Emerging Writers Programme will be selected anonymously by a panel of judges. Chair of judges, YA novelist and essayist Yassmin Abdel-Magied will be joined by non-fiction writer Simon Garfield, literary agent Eli Keren, playwright and novelist Nell Leyshon, poet Rachel Long, and screen and children's writer John McNally.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese-Australian writer, broadcaster, social advocate, mechanical engineer and Trustee of The London Library. Her written work includes a memoir, Yassmin’s Story, the Layla series of young adult novels and her essays have appeared in anthologies such as It’s Not About the Burqa and New Daughters of Africa. Yassmin will chair the judging panel.

Simon Garfield is a journalist and best-selling non-fiction writer. His published work covers a wide range of topics, from maps (On the Map) to fonts (Just My Type) to correspondence (To the Letter). His most recent work, Dog’s Best Friend (2021), examines the bond between dogs and their people and his next book, to be published in September is All the Knowledge in the World: the Extraordinary Story of the Encyclopaedia.

Eli Keren is a literary agent at United Agents, whose growing list includes writers of fiction and non-fiction. Originally trained as a research chemist, Eli spends a lot of his time working with experts and academics to bring their areas of expertise to a commercial audience. He has a particular interest in non-fiction that communicates positive ideas effectively as well as LGBT-themed books in both fiction and non-fiction.

Nell Leyshon is a playwright and novelist. Her play Bedlam was the first by a woman to be performed at the Globe Theatre and she has since become Deputy Chair of the Globe’s Board of Trustees. Her most recent play is the critically acclaimed Folk (Hampstead Theatre, BBC R3) and her novels include Memoirs of a Dipper and The Colour of Milk. She is Artistic Director of the Outsiders Project, a community-based initiative for outsider artists.

Rachel Long is a poet and the founder of the Octavia Poetry Collective for Women of Colour. Her acclaimed debut collection, My Darling from the Lions, was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award, the Forward Prize, the Jhalak Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize in 2020.

John McNally is a screenwriter and novelist whose past work includes projects with Aardman Studios, the BBC, and Sony. His most recent work is the Infinity Drake trilogy, a series of adventure novels for children.

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Membership Discount for Stylist Readers

2021-10-25T15:16:29+00:00

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A unique place to read, to write and to be inspired

From elegant reading rooms, to labyrinthine bookstacks, the Library provides atmospheric spaces for its members to work from in the centre of London. Our location in the idyllic St James' Square makes us one of the city's best loved secrets, tucked between Piccadilly Circus and Green Park. Inside the Library there’s a vast collection of books dating from 1700 to the present day that members can browse on 17 miles of open access shelves, as well as online collections and subscription only e-resources.

We’ve been at the heart of literature for over 180 years, counting among our numbers writers as diverse as Sarah Waters and Tom Stoppard; Virginia Woolf and Bram Stoker. A community for anyone who loves the written word, the Library has recently welcomed members including the novelist Jessie Burton, poet Raymond Antrobus and writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied, among many others.

In recent years our events programme have seen leading figures such as Naomi Ishiguro, Emily Berry, and Edmund de Waal speak at the Library. From anthology launches and poetry recitals, to interviews with novelists and panel talks, our events bring the latest in literature, history and culture directly to our members.

Our Offer for Stylist Readers

Stylist readers can receive a 15% discount off their first year of membership, applicable across all membership types, with the code STYLIST15. This offer is valid until 31st December 2021. Full terms and conditions of this offer are below.

Join Now

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Terms & Conditions

Introductory offers may be made available from time to time by the London Library.
Introductory offers are for new members and cannot be used by current or renewing London Library members or anyone who has been in London Library membership in the last 24 months.
Introductory offers are not applicable to Life Membership, some may only be applicable to Full, Young Person and Spouse Membership.
Introductory offers apply to London Library membership only and cannot be transferred to other London Library products and services.
Introductory offers are each applicable for a set period of time. The London Library reserves the right to earlier terminate, withdraw or refuse any introductory offer any time without prior notice and with no liability.
Introductory offers that are for members only may not be used by non-members.
Introductory offers that are for a specific type of membership e.g. gift membership may not be used for any other type of membership.
At the end of the introductory membership period, usually 12 months, London Library membership is renewable at the standard rate for the applicable category of membership.

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Events Access at The London Library

2021-09-28T13:48:04+00:00

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Thank you for booking for The London Library. Please read these guidelines before you come to the event.

Please do not arrive at the Library before the advertised doors opening time as you will not be able to enter the building.
You do not need to print your ticket. Please just give your name to Library staff on reception as you come in.
For most public speaker events drinks will be served in the Issue Hall prior to the event and doors to the Reading Room will open five minutes before the talk begins. For book launches, salons, prize announcements and parties, the bar will be in the Reading Room. When relevant, books will be on sale either in the Issue Hall or Reading Room before and after the event.
If you need step-free access, please let us know at events@londonlibrary.co.uk and enter via the Masons Yard entrance in the eastern corner of Masons Yard. The Reading Room is accessible via the lift, as are the disabled toilets in the basement. Please let us know if you are in a wheelchair and we will reserve a space for you.
The health of our visitors and staff remains our top priority, and we’ll continue to keep procedures in place to ensure your visit is as safe as possible. This includes hand sanitiser points and ventilation throughout the building.
All events take place in our Reading Room, which will be well ventilated throughout events with large windows open on both sides of the room. Please be aware that this can sometimes mean the room is a little cool.
Please do not attend if you have Covid symptoms or have had a positive Covid test. Where relevant in these circumstances, we’re happy to provide a refund – please just get in touch 24 hours before the event on events@londonlibrary.co.uk

We’re looking forward to welcoming you to The London Library.

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