Jewish Literary Foundation reveals Genesis Emerging Writers cohort for 2024

The Jewish Literary Foundation has announced this year’s Genesis Emerging Writers cohort.

The successful submissions in fiction, non-fiction and poetry are set across Lithuania, the American South, Belfast and beyond.

The programme, a partnership between the Genesis Foundation and the Jewish Literary Foundation, offers bursaries, mentoring, peer support and an event at London’s longest-running literary festival Book Week to the 10 successful applicants.

Now in its fourth year, the programme is open to all UK residents over 18 years of age with no more than three years’ experience of being published. You can watch a short film about the programme here.

In the non-fiction category the mentors are comedian Robin Ince, author Lily Dunn and biographer Clare Mulley. The selected emerging writers are: Aleph Ross with essays on the art of forgetting and her Lithuanian ancestry; Sabine Casparie with a memoir exploring the intersections of mental health and art; and Sam with graphic memoir Eraser Years, charting the impact of childhood social bullying.

The fiction projects chosen for this year’s programme are: Alison Green’s psychological thriller Housesitter; Hannah Silver’s Second World War story inspired by her Jewish grandparents’ experience in North Africa which has a working title of Return to Sender, Europe and the US; Lucy Thynne’s story of sisters Layla and Grace; Marianne Paget’s novel on the breakdown of an Edinburgh family Swidden and Megan McKeown’s humorous, East Belfast-set Nothing Good Comes from Overthinking.

The fiction mentors are Alex Gerlis, Ali Shaw, Daisy Buchanan, Nicholas Royle and Sanjida.

In the poetry category the emerging writers are Timothy Fox with a mix of verse and prose on his childhood in the American Deep South and Charlotte Salkind with her collection celebrating mess, desire and failure. Their mentors will be Tamar Yoseloff and Jacqueline Saphra.

John Studzinski, founder and chairman of the Genesis Foundation, said: “The topics tackled by this new fourth cohort of emerging writers are promising in their relevance, diversity and complexity. The mentor/mentee relationship is vital to an artist’s development and the Jewish Literary Foundation has selected outstanding mentors to guide the writers in their work. This programme goes to the heart of what we have been doing for 20 years: supporting and nurturing creative and emerging talent and we hope it serves as a stepping stone in these writers’ careers.”

Claudia Rubenstein, director of the Jewish Literary Foundation said: “We are so proud of this programme and the successes that our previous emerging writers have so deservedly enjoyed in just three years. The Genesis Foundation is such a great supporter of emerging artists across a variety of disciplines and we are excited to see what these 10 writers produce over the next year.”