Women’s Prize Trust announces Discoveries shortlist, after record number of entries

The Women’s Prize Trust has revealed the shortlist for its annual Discoveries Prize, which received a record 3,000 entries this year. 

The Discoveries programme, run by the Women’s Prize Trust in partnership with Curtis Brown literary agency, the Curtis Brown Creative writing school and Audible, aims to “find and support aspiring female writing talent from across the UK and Ireland”.  

This year’s shortlist includes a Manchester-based puppeteer; an actor from West Yorkshire inspired by the writing of her 100-year-old Caribbean grandfather and a writer-in-residence at a palliative care hospital in Scotland. 

The shortlisted novels-in-progress have a strong showing for ‘genre’ fiction, including psychological thriller, speculative fiction and romantic comedy, as well as representing genre-defying experiments with language and form. 

In the shortlisted novels, one writer imagines a grotesque, near-future world where nature is undergoing a rapid evolutionary burst, while another writer pens a historical fantasy exploring colonial power and freedom. Three cousins in modern-day London grapple with identity and love; while a progressive end-of-life hospice provides the setting for another contemporary novel. A novel written with “Ulster humour” explores the invisible wounds of grief and survivor’s guilt, and a suspenseful tale emerges from an online therapy session. 

This year’s shortlisted authors are: Louisa Ashton, for Build Her with Green; Fiona Campbell, for The Wife of Riley; Georgina Charles, for Colour Me In; Paige Cowan-Hall, for Marooned; Riana Duce, for Without a Trace; and Emily Utter, for The Night Room. 

These six writers were shortlisted by a judging panel chaired by Kate Mosse, founder-director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction; 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: “Our judging meeting was passionate, fun, full of delight and awe at the range and quality of the submissions, and it was hard to choose just six authors. There is a fabulous range of genres – from speculative fiction to romance – novels set in the past, the recent present and the imagined future, the promise of stories of love, loss, climate, history. We cannot wait to read each of the novels and feel certain that these are all writers to watch.” 

Davis and Morris added: “This year’s Discoveries shortlist showcases some truly dazzling writing and utterly enthralling narratives. We are excited to see where all these novels will go – and also want to celebrate the full longlist of 16 enormously talented women, and the almost 3,000 writers who entered this year. It’s a privilege to discover so many wonderful stories.” 

All six writers will be offered a mentoring session with a Curtis Brown agent plus a free six-week online course with Curtis Brown Creative. They’ll also take part (along with the other 10 writers who appeared on the Discoveries longlist) in a bespoke two-week writing development course, led by author Charlotte Mendelson, designed and delivered by Curtis Brown Creative. The shortlisted writers will also take part in a studio session on writing and recording for audio with Audible. Alongside the announcement of the overall winner of Discoveries 2023 on 1st June, one promising writer from the shortlist of six will be named the ‘Discoveries Scholar’; this writer will win a free scholarship to attend a three-month Writing Your Novel course with Curtis Brown Creative.