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Women's Prize 2025 judging panels announced
The 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction judging panel has been announced, alongside the 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. The Fiction prize celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2025, whilst the Non-fiction prize enters its second year. The Fiction Prize judging panel is made up of chair, author Kit de Waal, alongside novelist, journalist and inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers (the Women’s Prize for debut novelists in 2006), Diana Evans; author, journalist and mental-health campaigner, Bryony Gordon; magazine editor, most recently editor-in-chief of Glamour UK, Deborah Joseph; and musician and composer known for award-winning film scores, Amelia Warner.
Chair of the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction Judges, journalist, author and broadcaster Kavita Puri is joined by the writer and broadcaster, Dr Leah Broad, whose work focuses on women’s cultural history; novelist and critic, Elizabeth Buchan; writer and environmental academic Dr Elizabeth-Jane Burnett; and author and writer of The Hyphen newsletter on Substack, Emma Gannon.
Kit de Waal, chair of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction judging panel, said: “What an honour to be the chair of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Not only do I get to read the most brilliant novels by women around and hear what they have to say about our world, but I’m judging with such interesting fellow judges, with all of us looking for the same thing: books that inspire and inform across the genres, books that make us laugh and weep, books that take chances without apology, and above all, books that stay with us long after the last page is read.”
Kavita Puri, chair of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction judging panel, said: "It’s an enormous privilege to chair the second year of the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, to celebrate outstanding female writers who are creating original work, across a broad range of genres, from history to science and nature, and beyond. Along with my fellow judges, I look forward to seeing how they are responding – in their own fields – to some of the biggest questions of our time, and elevating their exceptional voices."
The longlist, shortlist and winner will be guided by the "three tenets of excellence, originality and accessibility". Each winner will receive £30,000 and a limited-edition artwork: the "Bessie" for the Fiction Prize – sculpted by the late Grizel Niven – and the "Charlotte" for the Non-Fiction Prize – sculpted by Ann Christopher RA FRSS, and gifted by the Charlotte Aitken Trust.
