London Writers Awards

2026 Awardees

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  Alex Luke

  Literary Fiction

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  Alex Luke

  Literary Fiction

  Alex Luke is a writer from London. Her fiction has won second prize in the 2023 Bridport Short Story competition and been published in SAND Journal and the Good Literary Journal. Her work has been nominated for the STACK Awards and for a Pushcart Prize. She has an MFA from Rutgers University Camden. She is a nanny by day and is currently working on her first novel.

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  Ashe McKenzie

  Literary Fiction

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  Ashe McKenzie

  Literary Fiction

  Ashe McKenzie is an Educator writer and friend-shaped monster. With a flair for the dramatic, she delights in the curious ordeal that is creating worlds in your head. Their novel-to-be was shortlisted for Merkybooks New Writers Prize 2024/25. It’s an upmarket novel inspired by their special interest in food and international cuisine which is only made worse by her indentured servitude to her father’s catering company. They are often found yapping at a book club, singing karaoke in Camden or co-hosting the Writer’s Gym at London’s Vagina Museum. 

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  Ike Onwordi

  Literary Fiction

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  Ike Onwordi

  Literary Fiction

  Ike Onwordi is a London based, Nigerian–born writer who has been creating stories for many years in a broad range of genres. His common theme is the exploration of cultural identity and belonging in the context of historical migrations and global diasporas. He worked as a freelance arts journalist and features writer in his twenties, with articles appearing in The Voice, Time Out, TLS and The New Statesman among others. His professional background is in Psychotherapy and Medical Anthropology, disciplines from which he draws extensively, both as a way of visioning his imaginative worlds, and of understanding the vagaries of human motivation. He is currently working on a new novel.  

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  Kyle Austin Kruse

  Literary Fiction

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  Kyle Austin Kruse

  Literary Fiction

  Kyle Austin Kruse is an American writer from California and based in London for the past nine years. His writing has been featured in DREAMTIMESFREE and won the 2021 STREETCAKE magazine prize for experimental fiction, as well as being a finalist in the 2022-23 Penguin Michael Joseph Undiscovered Writers Prize. His work focuses on complex social dynamics, moral ambiguity, and class. Often blending accents of humour and kindness into the harrowing, seeking a light of human resilience in the inevitable dark. 

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  Leila Taheri

  Literary Fiction

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  Leila Taheri

  Literary Fiction

  Leila Taheri is a British-Iranian writer and creative director drawn to neglected narratives, whether that’s writing about the politics of litter for The Guardian, imagining blue space futures for the Wellcome Collection, explaining the psychology of trash in a book on psychoanalysis and culture, or composing eco-poetry for pavements. Her fiction revives the incredible myths of Iran, especially those featuring evil, nature, and women. She is currently developing these themes in a novel, short story collection, and children’s book. This attraction to overlooked stories also drives her community work in London’s green spaces, because for her, bringing back a patch of earth and breathing life into an ancient myth are part of the same project: re-collecting and recollecting the forgotten.  

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  Liane Wimhurst

  Literary Fiction

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  Liane Wimhurst

  Literary Fiction

  Liane Wimhurst is a former foreign correspondent turned fiction writer living in Hackney. She writes feminist body horror short fiction and has been published in Prism International in Canada. She received an Arts Council grant and mentorship as she wrote the first draft of her novel. Ya’ani (Meaning) follows May, a war reporter living in Bethlehem in 2007, and her friendship with her translator, Saad, a Hamas-voting local who sees no other way out of a territorial deadlock. Her writing is political, intimate and finds humour in the darkest of places. She also has an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths. 

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  Miranda Horn

  Literary Fiction

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  Miranda Horn

  Literary Fiction

  Miranda Horn is a writer from London whose work explores the intersection of contemporary culture and identity. She is the recipient of The Curtis Brown Creative H.W Fisher Scholarship, after which she received mentoring from Julia Armfield. She came second place in the Heroica Poetry Prize, and her poems feature in the recently published anthology Between Queer Teeth. She regularly performs on the London poetry circuit and was a contributor to Proud West End – an audio-visual exhibition that champions the stories of London’s LGBTQIA+ community. With a background as an actor and filmmaker, she has performed in West End theatre, and her films have premiered at BAFTA-qualifying festivals. 

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  Moi Lanne Wetzel-Liao

  Literary Fiction

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  Moi Lanne Wetzel-Liao

  Literary Fiction

  Moi Lanne Wetzel-Liao is a British-Hakka Chinese writer from West London. She studied Politics and American Studies at the University of Nottingham and has previously worked in retail, bookselling and book publishing. Through her writing, she reflects on themes such as belonging, grief, guilt and regret through a gothic-horror lens. The novel she is currently working on explores being alienated within an already isolated community, and its lasting effects on identity.  

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  Nash Colundalur

  Literary Fiction

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  Nash Colundalur

  Literary Fiction

  Nash Colundalur is a journalist and playwright. He won the Guardian Journalism Award for reporting on climate-change skirmishes in Kenya and has worked undercover on political prisoners in Venezuela, kitchenhands in London’s restaurants, and slavery in India. His play on the Partition of India won the Hammond House Award. He was part of the BBC writers’ room, leading to a play and a BFI film on child soldiers. He was shortlisted for the Faber Children’s Book Award. His novel manuscript was longlisted for the Book Edit Prize, selected for the Limnisa Writing Retreat in Greece, and received a Society of Authors writing grant. His current novel explores modern sibling relationships, affected by shifting worldviews, and the growing threat of childhood secrets. 

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  Natasha Samrai

  Literary Fiction

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  Natasha Samrai

  Literary Fiction

  Natasha Samrai is a writer, facilitator and early career director. As a writer, she has been longlisted for the Originals Playwriting Award and an early draft of her novel manuscript was highly commended by the Watson Little x Indie Novella prize. She writes a monthly newsletter on her substack Missed Text. Her directorial practice is centered around bending theatrical pedagogy and takes seriously the responsibility of artists to make the revolution irresistible. She has directed work for stages such as Omnibus Clapham and the Arcola, and assistant directed at Soho Theatre. In her work as a facilitator, she works to enable the self-determined expression of marginalized folk, and to anchor collective spaces in a zone of shared humanity.  

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  Sophie Stanley

  Literary Fiction

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  Sophie Stanley

  Literary Fiction

  Sophie Stanley (she/her) is a queer, neurodivergent writer from East London. She graduated from Queen Mary, University of London with a BA in English Literature and Linguistics in 2024. She was shortlisted for the Creative Future Writers Award as well as the Aesthetica Creative Writing Prize. She writes about class, intimacy, and difficult women. She is inspired by writers like Mary Gaitskill, Naoise Dolan, Douglas Stuart, Eliza Clark, and a million more.

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  Suman Sandhu

  Literary Fiction

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  Suman Sandhu

  Literary Fiction

  Suman Sandhu is a British writer of Punjabi heritage and was longlisted in 2025 for the Women’s Prize Trust Discoveries award. Holding a BA in Politics & History and a Master’s in Public Policy, she hopes her debut novel will show that diaspora stories have an important place in contemporary fiction. Blending sharp cultural insight with a curiosity about human behaviour, her work explores universal themes through a feminist and second gen lens. Passionate about giving main character energy to people usually neglected in mainstream fiction, she believes that storytelling has the power to dissolve dualities and transcend cultural differences. When not lost in a good book, Suman enjoys travel, filmand style. 

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  C.M. Ashbourn

  Commercial Fiction

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  C.M. Ashbourn

  Commercial Fiction

  C.M. Ashbourn is a writer of fantasy and speculative fiction based in South East London. He’s always loved to read about and create strange new worlds steeped in magic, mystery, and morally grey characters. In 2024 he completed his first novel, a young adult fantasy set in a world where magic is dying out and its wielders are exploited for industrial gain. In 2025 his short story “His Bedside Table” was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Award. He’s currently working on his second novel, an adult fantasy mystery centred around mental manipulation, conspiracy and faith. Outside of writing, he enjoys pottery, cooking and exploring winding cobbled streets in old cities. 

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  Felix C. Bill

  Commercial Fiction

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  Felix C. Bill

  Commercial Fiction

  Felix C. Bill is a transgender author born and raised in Brixton. In 2025, he won the Love Letters to London writing prize, and his short fiction has been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies including Muswell Press’ Queer Life: Queer Love 3. In 2024, he received a National Parks New Perspectives storytelling grant, producing a short story collection titled Transing the Wild: Wilding the Trans, which is available to read on his website. His current novel-in-progress, Selkie, has been longlisted and placed runner up in various work-in-progress writing competitions. He also holds a Mathematics BSc from the University of Bristol.  

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  Laurie Kirwan-Ashman

  Commercial Fiction

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  Laurie Kirwan-Ashman

  Commercial Fiction

  Laurie Kirwan-Ashman (they/them) is a writer and filmmaker whose work focuses on queerness and gender with a genre-blending, hopepunk approach to storytelling. They were chosen for Hachette and The Future Bookshelf’s inaugural Grow Your Story programme in 2024. For their filmmaking work they have been selected for the BFI NETWORK @ LFF programme, and the BFI Flare x BAFTA Mentorship, mentored by writer-director Kate Herron (SEX EDUCATION, LOKI, THE LAST OF US). Laurie has two feature films as a writer-director in development. PATHOS is Laurie’s first novel. 

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  Liam  Scanlon 

  Commercial Fiction

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  Liam  Scanlon 

  Commercial Fiction

  Liam Scanlon is a thirty-two-year-old queer Canadian writer, theatre maker and actor. A Londoner for eight years, he’s a recipient of an Arts Council National Lottery grant for his second play, Attachment Theory, premiering April 2026, and a 2024 recipient of the HW Fischer scholarship for Curtis Brown Creative’s Writing Your Novel course. His writing has appeared in editions of Oyster River Pages, Carnations, Violets & Lavender (Delos publishing) and Seedlings magazine, and his first play premiered in autumn 2023.  

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  Lola Pereira

  Commercial Fiction

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  Lola Pereira

  Commercial Fiction

  Lola Pereira is a writer based in South London whose writing tells tales of the magic that binds love and care between generations. Her writing has appeared in Tales of the City(Token Magazine, 2023) and the University of Exeter journal Riptide (2023). Her novel-in-progress was awarded a Free Read as part of The Literary Consultancy’s LGBTQ Free Read programme with writer Michael Langan. Her first children’s picture book story was awarded a Jericho Prize and shortlisted for the Golden Egg Picture Book Award in 2024.  

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  Nasima Ali

  Commercial Fiction

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  Nasima Ali

  Commercial Fiction

  Nasima Ali is a London-based career civil servant for whom writing serves as a welcome escape from the world of geopolitics and diplomacy. A British Muslim of Bangladeshi heritage, she is passionate about contributing to the growing representation of diverse and multifaceted characters in commercial fiction, and this gave birth to her debut novel Roots and Ruin. By subverting the traditional murder mystery detective, the book is a vehicle to explore salient issues in the immigrant and global majority communities in the UK, such as language barriers, digital exclusion and loneliness, and generational divides. Nasima has previously been shortlisted for the #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize. 

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  Laura Jamieson

  YA/Children’s Fiction

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  Laura Jamieson

  YA/Children’s Fiction

  Laura Jamieson is a YA and Adult fiction writer. She holds a BA in American Literature with Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Laura is intrigued by stories that are dark, weird and unsettling, and finds these themes worm their way into all of her writing. She is currently writing her first novel, a YA sapphic paranormal romance that is set in the Scottish Highlands and follows the deadly romance between a boarding school student and an elusive Siren. Laura is inspired by the lack of queer YA fiction that existed when she was a teenager, and her childhood trips to Scotland. 

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  Nafisa Rahimi

  YA/Children’s Fiction

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  Nafisa Rahimi

  YA/Children’s Fiction

  Nafisa Rahimi is a British Bangladeshi writer and former English teacher. She is currently developing the Harrison and York English workbooks for children and writes culturally diverse stories featuring magical adventures rooted in everyday British life. Her middle-grade fantasy novel was shortlisted for the 2026 Golden Egg Award for Fiction. An award-winning podcaster, her Lockdown Diaries are in the Museum of London’s Permanent Collection. She was also the first British Muslim woman to win the 2022 Meta Accelerator Programme for Muslim Mamas. Her children feed her imagination and are both her toughest critics and greatest cheerleaders. When she’s not writing, Nafisa can be found brunching in North London, cooking mammoth meals, or hiding in a cupboard with a good book. 

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  Natalie Clark

  YA/Children’s Fiction

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  Natalie Clark

  YA/Children’s Fiction

  Natalie Clark is a half-Malaysian British creative from London who spends as much time as annual leave would allow in Kuala Lumper. She is an alumni of the HarperCollins Author Academy which she was proud to be a part of in 2023. Natalie’s greatest love (beside her husband, toddler and rescue dog) is to dive into fantastical realms and stories, most recently working on her own creation. Maya and The Arcane Academy is set in a world inspired by Southeast Asia and is a story that offers the growing community of mixed-race children a chance to feel like they belong in the pages filled with magic and mischief. 

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  Nathanael Wheatcroft-Brown

  YA/Children’s Fiction

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  Nathanael Wheatcroft-Brown

  YA/Children’s Fiction

  Nathanael Wheatcroft-Brown is a queer writer originally from North Yorkshire, now based in London. He began writing Young Adult fiction as a teenager and hasn’t stopped since. His Young Adult novel-in-progress, You Look Better in the Sun, was one of the winners of The Book Edit Writer’s Prize in 2023, and a sample from the novel secured him a place on The London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme in 2024. He holds a BA in Filmmaking and an MA in Creative Writing. You Look Better in the Sun draws closely on the dialects and energy of his home region. 

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  Nicola J. Maher

  YA/Children’s Fiction

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  Nicola J. Maher

  YA/Children’s Fiction

  Nicola J. Maher is a queer, London-based writer currently working in international development. She began her career in publishing, progressing from journalist to magazine editor, before moving into project management. She started writing fiction seriously in 2017, completing one unpublished novel as a way of honing her voice, and is currently developing her debut contemporary YA novel, All the Almosts, which explores identity, friendship, fear, and first love.