Judges 2023-24

Terri White is a journalist, author and screenwriter based in the northwest. Her book, Coming Undone: A Memoir was published by Canongate in 2020 and she is now developing it for television – as writer and Exec Producer – with Netflix and Bad Wolf, the production company behind His Dark Materials and I Hate Suzie. She is a columnist for The Sunday Times and a journalist specialising in class, society, VAWG and culture for titles including New Statesman, The Observer, British Vogue, The Guardian and The Big Issue. Prior to this, Terri worked in publishing for two decades, editing magazines in the UK and US including EMPIRE and Time Out New York. She was named Editor of the Year three times by the British Society of Magazine Editors; one of the 150 Female Leaders redefining the creative industries and a Folio Top Woman in US Media. She received the BSME’s lifetime achievement award, the Mark Boxer Award, in 2022 and was made a Fellow of the RSA (The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), in recognition of her work in journalism. She is currently working on a short film, her second non-fiction book and her first novel.

Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff is an award-winning freelance journalist, book editor, columnist, and she is managing Editor at Skin Deep, a columnist at Stylist magazine, and writes a weekly newsletter on the culture of friendship, called The Companion.  

Formerly a Senior Staff Editor at the New York Times and Editor-in-Chief at gal-dem magazine. She has written and edited for a variety of publications, including the Guardian and Observer, Dazed, and the Financial Times.  

She is the editor of the books Black Joy (Penguin, 2021), I Will Not Be Erased: Our stories about growing up as people of colour (Walker, 2019), and the editor and main author of Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Children (Hachette, 2018). 

She was the winner of the 2016 Georgina Henry Award for Innovation in Journalism. 

Andrew Hankinson is a journalist and award-winning author. He has contributed to BBC Radio 4, FT Weekend Magazine, New Yorker and Sunday Times. He also hosts the Logroll podcast about nonfiction books. He lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  

Sheena Patel is a writer and assistant director for the film and TV industry. She is part of the 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE collective and her debut novel I’m a Fan won the Discover Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2023, has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Jhalak Prize. It was Foyles Fiction Book of the Year 2022 and an Observer Best Debut Novel of 2022.