You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
The Women’s Prize Trust has named Paige Cowan-Hall as winner of the 2023 Discoveries Prize.
Her historical fantasy novel Marooned, described by the judges as “a vividly imagined historical fantasy set in Jamaica, based on the real-world stories of the Maroons, runaway slaves who fought the British and founded the Maroon settlement”, was chosen from almost 3,000 entries.
As the winner of the prize, Cowan-Hall receives an offer of representation by Curtis Brown, a cash prize of £5,000 and a place on a Curtis Brown Creative six-week online course. In July, she will also join Curtis Brown Creative’s specially designed two-week Discoveries Writing Development course alongside the other 15 writers longlisted for Discoveries 2023.
Cowan-Hall, a London-based writer and the child of second-generation Jamaican immigrants, said: “For me, winning is proof that whatever doubts you have, whatever voice in your head tells you ‘you aren’t good enough’, go for it anyway. If I’d listened to my doubts I wouldn’t have entered."
Additionally, Manchester-based writer and puppeteer Louisa Ashton is announced as the Discoveries Scholar. Her speculative novel Build Her With Green explores the relationship between humans and plants in a post-apocalyptic setting.
Ashton won a scholarship place on a three-month Writing Your Novel course with Curtis Brown Creative, where she will receive expert tuition to further develop her novel.
Now in its third year, Discoveries, run by the Women’s Prize Trust in partnership with Curtis Brown literary agency, the Curtis Brown Creative writing school (both part of The Curtis Brown Group) and Audible, aims to find and support emerging female writing talent from across the UK and Ireland.
The judging panel was chaired by Kate Mosse, novelist, playwright and founder-director of the Women’s Prize; Lucy Morris, Curtis Brown literary agent; Anna Davis, founder and managing director of Curtis Brown Creative writing school; and novelists Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Chibundu Onuzo.
Mosse said: “The works-in-progress of both our winner Paige Cowan-Hall and scholar Louisa Ashton had everything any reader would want from a novel – distinctive voice, imagination, passion, exhilaration and beautiful writing.
"Most of all, each of the judges was desperate to have more and to follow these two very different stories through to the end. Congratulations to Paige and to Louisa, a huge thank you to my fellow judges, the hardworking team of readers at Curtis Brown and Curtis Brown Creative, and to everyone at Audible who is helping us develop Discoveries into a powerhouse of new writing.”