Hatzaw, Zakharov and Evans among Creative Future Writers winners

Siam Hatzaw, Vera Zakharov and Charlie Rose Evans are the Platinum winners at this year’s Creative Future Writers’ Awards (CFWA).

This year saw a record number of 1,300 submissions, a 10% increase on 2022.

Established in 2013, the prize is billed as “the only free national competition for all underrepresented writers”.  A prize fund of £20,000 worth of cash and writing development prizes is shared by the 2023 winners to help develop their writing careers.

Migration, otherness, identity, complex family relationships and lived experiences of disability and abuse are among the themes explored in the 12 winning entries, which span short stories, poetry and creative non-fiction.

The inaugural Platinum Prize for Creative Non-Fiction was won by Hatzaw, a Burmese writer from Glasgow for Homecoming, a “strikingly beautiful” reflection on migration, alienation and a longing for home, written in the wake of the 2021 coup in Burma.

The Platinum Prize for Poetry was awarded to food campaigner Zakharov, who lives in East Sussex, for "Mudlark of the Ouse", a “raw and visceral” poem exploring love, self-acceptance and the beauty to be found in a polluted river.

Evans from Birmingham won the Platinum Prize for Prose for Mice, a “beautifully crafted” short story about an intense childhood friendship. The full list of winners can be found below.

Judge of the 2023 Creative Future Writers’ Award, poet, writer and essayist, Nina Mingya Powles, said: "Judging the Creative Futures Awards this year was an invigorating and challenging process. The shortlist of many innovative writers offered a glimpse of some of the most exciting writing being produced in the UK today.

In the poetry and fiction categories, writers boldly pushed boundaries of genre and form.

“In creative non-fiction, a category new to the prize this year, there was an incredible range of stories and voices covering subjects I’d not encountered before. I was drawn all the way in and longed to keep reading. It’s been a joy and an honour to be involved in this prize that is helping to reshape our literary landscape."

An awards ceremony featuring the winning writers and guest authors will take place at the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival on Friday 20th October 2023 at 7.30 p.m.

Tickets are available here. The winning submissions, alongside work by the 2023 award judges, are published in an anthology.

The 2023 Creative Future Writers’ Award winners are:

Creative non-fiction: 

• Platinum – Homecoming: Reflections on the Spring Revolution by Siam Hatzaw
• Gold – The National Trust’s Bomb Disposal Squad by Bethany Handley
• Silver – Finding the Words by C Castle
• Bronze – I liked the way the world looked at me when I was in the closet by Jay Mitra

Poetry:

• Platinum – "Mudlark of the Ouse" by Vera Zakharov
• Gold – "You Call It Your Secret Garden" by Rachael Li Ming Chong
• Silver – "Cross Stich House" by Charlotte Murray
• Bronze – "Johnny Peter" by Renée Eshel  

Prose:

• Platinum – Mice by Charlie Rose Evans  
• Gold – Three Kinds of Tears by Rayna Haralambieva
• Silver – Bread and Demons by Jay Jellicoe
• Bronze – Sand Swimming by Samreen Faria