Winners of inaugural Martha Mills Writing Prize revealed

The London Review Bookshop has announced the inaugural winners of the Martha Mills Young Writers’ Prize, for writers aged between 11 and 14, following over 1,000 entries. 

The three winners - Izzy Cooper, Flynn Alexander Hampson and Mabel Swift – will receive £200 and a selection of books. They will also have their writing published in a prize pamphlet alongside the 11 runners-up: Nicholas Bailey, Christabel Fletcher, Martha Gibbins, Anastasis Henningham, Hugo Hodson, Grace Osei-Wusu, A Pancho, Magdalena Pietravalle, Aadam Qureshi, Leo Smith and Theo Berrisford Sweet. 

This year’s competition was judged by writer Katherine Rundell, the Guardian’s Saturday magazine editor Merope Mills, Paul Laity, an editor at The London Review of Books, and Gayle Lazda, bookseller at the London Review Bookshop. 

The store, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, announced the results on its blog: “We are delighted to have had more than 1,000 entries in the first year of the prize. The young writers showed immense talent – sparks of literary imagination were flying everywhere, and the idea of ‘The Stranger’ given a wonderful variety of interpretations. In the end we looked for both originality of treatment and writing flair, though that still left us with hundreds of entries to choose from.  

“We salute the three winners, and the runners-up also due to be published in the prize pamphlet, and are proud to have encountered so many writers who so clearly share Martha’s talent.” 

Inspired by keen writer Martha, the daughter of Laity and Mills, the award “seeks to give young people a chance to explore new themes in their writing and to get their work published". Mills wrote about her daughter’s death in the Guardian last September. 

Mills and Laity revealed the inspiration behind the prize when it launched in March: “Every birthday and Christmas our daughter Martha would ask for the same presents: a notebook and a snow globe. By the time she died, aged 13, she was an enthusiastic writer with dozens of snow globes and piles of notebooks bursting with book ideas.  

“She produced countless half-finished stories, opening lines, chapter plans and character breakdowns. Martha loved reading and writing and took inspiration from her favourite authors – Katherine Rundell, Malorie Blackman, Philip Pullman and others. We weren’t able to witness her grow as a reader and writer, but we hope the Martha Mills prize will inspire other young writers.” 

Details of how to order the prize pamphlet will be announced soon. For more information, visit: londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/blog.