Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards

2026 Judges

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  Kerry  Hudson

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  Kerry  Hudson

  Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Growing up in a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life, and a love of travel. 

  Kerry’s first novel, TONY HOGAN BOUGHT ME AN ICE-CREAM FLOAT BEFORE HE STOLE MY MA (Chatto & Windus), was published in July 2012 and was shortlisted for eight literary prizes, including the Guardian First Book Award and Green Carnation Prize, and won Scottish First Book of the Year. Her second novel, THIRST, was published by Chatto & Windus in July 2014 before being shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize. It was also published in France by Editions Philippe Rey (translated by Florence Lévy-Paolini) where it became a bestseller and won the prestigious Prix Femina Etranger 2015, and in Italy by Minimum Fax, where it was shortlisted for the Strega Prize. She is currently writing her third novel. 

  Her first work of nonfiction, LOWBORN: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns (Chatto & Windus, 2019) became a Sunday Times bestseller and was chosen by BBC Radio 4 as their Book of the Week, by The Guardian and Spectator as a Book of the Year, and by Stylist as a Book of the Decade. A follow-up, NEWBORN: Running Away, Breaking with the Past, Building a New Family, was published by Chatto & Windus in February 2024 (‘It was always going to be difficult to follow LOWBORN, but Kerry Hudson is Kerry Hudson and she has done it – cleverly, honestly, brilliantly’ – Roddy Doyle).
  Kerry writes for various publications including The New York Times, Guardian, Big Issue, Press and Journal and BBC Radio 4, and currently writes a travel column for The Herald. In 2020, Kerry was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

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  Micha Frazer-Carroll

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  Micha Frazer-Carroll

  Micha Frazer-Carroll is a journalist and the author of Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health. Her work appears regularly in The Guardian, the Independent and Novara Media. She specialises in disability, mental health and race, and has held positions at gal-dem, The Runnymede Trust, Healing Justice London and the National Survivor User Network.

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  Eli  Keren

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  Eli  Keren

  Eli Keren is a literary agent at the Curious Minds Agency, an agency dedicated to expert-led evidence-based non-fiction, which he joined in 2024 after eight years at United Agents.

  Before starting his publishing career he had been a research scientist designing and synthesising novel drugs, and science books remain a particular passion of his. He mostly works with experts, academics and researchers on ideas-led books in the fields of smart science and current affairs, focussing on health & wellness, medicine and popular psychology alongside feminist and LGBTQ+ books.

  In 2022 he wrote and delivered Jericho Writers’ How to Write a Proposal course, in 2023 he was elected treasurer of the UK’s Association of Authors’ Agents where he chairs the association’s sub-committee on AI in publishing, and he has been a returning judge on the Bloomsbury Academic Writing Fellowship since its founding in 2023. He cooks, games and crochets. 

  He enjoys books written by writers who are obsessed with a niche subject and skilled enough communicators to make others fall in love with their subject too, and is always on the lookout for books that are going to change the world for the better.