Winners 2025

Sarah Butler

Sarah Butler has three novels published by Picador in the UK and with fourteen international publishers: Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love (2013), Before the Fire (2015) and Jack and Bet (2020). In November 2018, she published a novella, Not Home, written in conversation with people living in unsupported temporary accommodation in Manchester. Sarah’s work explores ideas of home, belonging, identity, family, and urban landscapes. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and has an MA in Creative Writing from University of East Anglia, an MSc in Urban Studies from University College London, and a PhD in Creative Writing from the Open University. Sarah also explores the relationship between writing and place through participatory projects. Recent writing residencies include writer-in-residence on the Central Line; at Great Ormond Street Hospital; and Stories from the Road – a project exploring personal stories of Oxford Road, Manchester.

www.urbanwords.org.uk
www.sarahbutler.org.uk

I am beyond delighted to have won a Northern Writers’ Award. It has come at the perfect time: after a particularly tough round of rejections that knocked my confidence as a writer. To have New Writing North demonstrate their belief in me, and in my novel, has lifted my heart and helped me believe in myself again. Thank you!

Kerry Andrew

Kerry Andrew (they/them) is a UK-based writer, composer and performer, and the author of three literary novels, Swansong, SKIN (both Jonathan Cape) and We Are Together Because (Atlantic Books), which was the New European’s Fiction Book of the Year 2024. They won the Edinburgh Short Story Award 2024 and have been twice shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. With a PhD in composition from the University of York and four British Composer Awards, Kerry specialises in experimental vocal and choral music, creates alt-folk as You Are Wolf and co-founded the award-winning Juice Vocal Ensemble.

I’m so delighted to have been given a Northern Writers’ Award! It’s really validating for me as a writer and will massively support me as I embark on my first historical novel. Knowing the judges liked my extract of early work-in-progress gives me a lot of confidence, as I get stuck into the first draft. Massive thanks to New Writing North.

Fuk Ching Wong (Helena)

Fuk Ching Wong (Helena) was born in Hong Kong and is currently based in Manchester, the UK. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Her work has been published in Popshot magazine, the Brooklyn Review, Tint Journal, fauxmoir lit mag, missive mag, and in anthologies by The Quillkeepers and the Hong Kong Writers’ Circle. She won the Most Creative Award for Hong Kong Top Story 2021. Her writing frequently blends speculative elements with folklore and philosophy, using animals and mythology to explore human nature, particularly through an Asian cultural lens.

Winning the Northern Debut Award is such an incredible honour. I came to the UK, a place where English literature and storytelling have long flourished, believing that my work could be fully appreciated, and that belief was affirmed. The North of England welcomed my story with open arms, and like the protagonist in my novel, I was no longer a salted fish; I am now a fish back in water, finally brought back to life. This moment of recognition gave me the confidence to keep writing boldly across cultures, languages, and genres. I can’t wait to share my story with the world! Thank you, New Writing North, my family and friends for making my dream come true!

Sarah Whitehead

Sarah Whitehead is a writer and teacher currently working at an FE college in Liverpool. Last year her first play,  Pass the Parcel, was performed at Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre. It told the story of three sisters haunted by the loss of their mother. When she was younger, she worked in hotels and pubs around Cumbria and has drawn on this experience to write her first novel.

I’m delighted and honoured to receive a Northern Debut Award for Fiction! I’ve been thinking about this novel since I was a teenager, and I feel so lucky to receive support and guidance from New Writing North to help me finish it.

Cat Stobbs

Cat Stobbs is a writer from Ellesmere Port who now lives in Manchester. Cat works as a libraries engagement officer, championing libraries and literacy in the community. Cat particularly enjoys working with children and young people to encourage reading and writing for pleasure. Cat’s writing explores themes of nature, friendship and what it means to feel at home. Her current work in progress is a YA fantasy novel about herbalism. When she’s not writing, Cat enjoys reading, running, gardening and wild swimming in places she’s not supposed to. 

When I received the email to say I had won the award I was euphoric. I now know that whenever the writing feels hard, or I’m struggling to make time for my novel, I will remember that feeling and that will be the motivation I need to keep going. After years of knocking on the door it feels as though someone has now opened it for me, and I can’t wait to see what’s on the other side! 

Ian Humphreys

Ian Humphreys’ latest collection, Tormentil (Nine Arches Press), won a Royal Society of Literature ‘Literature Matters’ Award, and was longlisted for The Laurel Prize 2024. His debut, Zebra (Nine Arches), was nominated for the Portico Prize. Ian was Writer in Residence for one year at the Brontë Parsonage Museum (2023/24), where he edited the prose poetry anthology No Net Ensnares Me (Calder Valley Poetry). He is the editor of Why I Write Poetry, and the producer/co-editor of After Sylvia: Poems and Essays in Celebration of Sylvia Plath (both from Nine Arches). Ian’s poems have been published by journals including The Poetry Review and Poetry London, and he has written for the BBC. His work has been highly commended buin the Forward Prizes for Poetry, and he is a Fellow of The Complete Works.

I’m honoured and thrilled to be awarded a Northern Writers’ Award for Poetry for my next collection in progress. I’m so grateful to the judges, Kathleen Jamie and Alycia Pirmohamed – both of whom are poets I really admire – for recognising the potential of the work I submitted. Thank you, New Writing North, and the sponsors of this prize – the award will prove invaluable in giving me the time, space and support I need to fully develop my manuscript.

Princess Arinola Adegbite

Princess Arinola Adegbite is a multi-award-winning British Jamaican-born Nigerian surrealist poet, musician and filmmaker who combines social activism with Afrofuturistic sensibilities. Her awards include Manchester Young Creative of the Year 2021 (Culture Awards) and a Society of Authors Eric Gregory Award 2023. She was a Poets of Colour Inaugural poet. Her poetry has been commissioned by the BBC, Selfridges, Chanel, The British Museum, Elizabeth Gaskell House and the University of Cambridge. Publications include Modron Magazine, The Poetry Society, Wasafiri and New Writing North. Her sophomore genre-bending EP, Eat My Heart, is out later this year.

pabitez.com

I am very grateful and honoured to win this award. I wrote many of these poems during an unpredictable time in my life and this award has reminded me that, despite circumstances, anyone can make art and beauty out of their life. This is an affirmation to continue writing and honouring my inner child, exploring issues around technology, identity and ecology. Thank you to the amazing judges and anyone who has ever encouraged me. I am so excited to be mentored and to have this creative support. I won’t ever stop creating. Thank you, New Writing North.

Fae Wolfe

Fae Wolfe lives in Manchester, orbiting around her wife and their three daughters. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in counselling psychology, with a research focus on decolonial methodologies. Her work has appeared in The London Magazine, Magma Poetry, Button Poetry, The Bitchin Kitsch, and Raising Mothers: Celebrating Black, Indigenous & Brown Parenthood. She was shortlisted for the James Berry Poetry Prize and named one of Mslexia’s five Highly Commended pamphlets.

For this award, I thank my wife for their unwavering encouragement for my writing. And to my late mother, whose stories are entangled within mine, and for her, I write.

Sammy Weaver

Sammy Weaver’s debut pamphlet Angola, America (Seren, 2022) won Mslexia’s Poetry Pamphlet Prize 2021 and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2023. Her poems have appeared in The Moth, Irish Times, Colorado Review, Mslexia, Anthropocene and the Island Review. She is a Yaddo Fellow and was poet-in-residence at the Poetry School’s SUMMIT Ecopoetry Festival 2024. Sammy is the Poet Laureate of Rochdale 2025–26. She regularly leads creative writing workshops in community, education and criminal-justice settings, most recently for the Arvon Foundation and Leeds Arts University. She lives on a narrowboat on the Pennine waterways.

I am completely chuffed to have won a Northern Writers’ Award! It means the world to be given support along the rocky journey of being a writer. I have encountered many challenges in trying to write my first full collection of poems. Finding the time and space to write can feel like a battle against the demands and costs of living, whilst low confidence nibbles its caustic teeth into every aspect of my practice. To be given this recognition, mentoring and community from New Writing North will be a huge help as I navigate this next step in my career.

Tony Kerr

Tony Kerr was born in a mining village in Sunderland, where he spent the majority of his time reading comics, Doctor Who novels, and raiding the local library. After a brief, but memorable, career as a welder he returned to university, where he stayed, working in marketing and PR. In the early 2000s, Tony had several plays staged, and helped set up an amateur theatre company, Northern Focus, but he returned to his first love, writing for children, when his own children grew up and stopped listening to him. Tony was a finalist for the Hachette Children’s Novel Award in 2020 and 2022, and the Northern Debut Award for YA Fiction in 2024. From 2024 to 2025 he was a Writers’ Block North East mentee.

I am absolutely thrilled to win this award. As a working-class boy growing up with a coal mine and a shipyard at the end of my street, it was books that lifted me out of my everyday life and showed me the path to a different future. I was the first in my family to go to university, because fictional worlds inspired me to dream big dreams. Now it is my dream to open that world up to other children, and winning the Hachette Children’s Novel Award is a huge step towards making that dream a reality.

Camilla Cassidy

Camilla Cassidy lives and writes in Skipton, North Yorkshire. Her work, which includes fiction and non-fiction, has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, The London Magazine, The Spectator, The Telegraph, History Today, and Slightly Foxed Quarterly, among other places. Her first non-fiction book, about the privatisation of common land, is forthcoming from Reaktion Books and won a Society of Authors K Blundell Award. She has a PhD in English and her academic book, Twilight Histories, was published by Brill in 2023.

It’s absolutely wonderful to win the Hachette Children’s Novel Award. This vote of confidence from New Writing North and the judges will make a tremendous difference to me and my novel. Since writing can be such a solitary experience and working towards publication so challenging, I’m especially grateful for the chance to develop my work with the support of experts and fellow writers. I’m very much looking forward to the year ahead.

Grace Higgins

Grace Higgins is a writer who blends both the speculative and the surreal. Inspired by the works of Franz Kafka and Junji Ito, her prose often involves the exploration of characters who have been placed in bizarre and unnerving situations. She has recently completed her BA in Creative Writing and is currently studying for her MA, both at Northumbria University. She was also a recipient of the Chris K. Jones scholarship for creative writing. Her current work-in-progress is a science-fiction mystery that explores corporate exploitation of memory and mental health. She lives with her parents, younger brother and two kittens.

It means the world to me to win this award. I still can’t believe it! My time at Northumbria University has been extremely valuable for honing my creative skills, and without the encouragement of my classmates and module leaders, I doubt I would have submitted my work to the Northern Writers’ Awards. To learn that such talented and creative people see the value in my work is a reward in itself, and I am so honoured. I look forward to the future and using this award to help me finish my first novel!

J.J. Carey

J.J. Carey writes and works in Leeds. They were a finalist for the inaugural Tempest Prize, the Oxford Poetry Prize and runner-up in the Banyon Poetry Prize in 2024. They are published or forthcoming in Propel, Queerlings, Anarchist Fictions, Beyond the Veil Press and elsewhere. You can find more of their work at jjcarey.com.

I’m deeply grateful to Dr Okechukwu Nzelu and the Northern Writers’ Awards for seeing the potential of this developing anticapitalist, anticolonial poetry collection. I’m also indebted to Anthony Anaxagorou, Out-Spoken Press, The Racial Justice Network and various other brilliant teachers and ancestors for their support and wisdom so far. Sharpening our voices, strengthening our storytelling and moving from being lone voices to connected movements feels ever-more urgent in this period of racial capitalism’s multiple genocides and accelerating fascism. Through this generous award, Andrew McMillan and New Writing North are offering me vital support for my part in that. I’m thrilled at this opportunity for mentoring and developing a writing network over the coming year. I hope I can do this honour justice in the work that follows.

Lizzie Lovejoy

Lizzie Lovejoy is a Darlo-born poet, performer and picture-maker. They’ve spent their life listening to people’s words, and now Lizzie translates local narratives into creative works. Working across the North, from the Scottish Borders to the Humber, Lizzie’s home is their inspiration because the North is a tale worth telling and contains so many stories worth hearing.

I am unbelievably thrilled to be receiving the Sid Chaplin Award. Growing up, I remember being told that people like me didn’t get to be writers and artists. That creativity wasn’t meant for calloused hands. My parents taught me otherwise. Working-class people are culture. When I started writing this novel, I wasn’t sure I’d ever show it to anyone, but my mum said, ‘Shy bairns get nowt.’ I am so grateful to New Writing North and the judges for giving me this opportunity. I can’t wait to share a story born from the magic that can be found across the working-class North.

Valerie O'Riordan

Valerie O’Riordan grew up in Ireland, but has been based in Manchester since 2009. She holds an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, both from the University of Manchester, and she currently teaches at the University of Greater Manchester, where she is Programme Leader for English and Creative Writing. Her work has been published in The Lonely Crowd, Litro, LitMag, and Banshee, amongst other journals, and she has won the Bristol Short Story Prize (2010) and the O. Henry Prize (2019).

I’m beyond thrilled to have won this year’s Finchale Award! It’s such an honour and I’m incredibly grateful to the judges. This is going to make a really massive difference to my writing practice over the next twelve months, and I can’t wait to get started!

Xani Byrne

Xani Byrne is a cyclist and psychologist living in North Shields. Xani’s early adulthood was spent pedalling tourists up cobbled hills in Edinburgh’s Rickshaws while saving up for bikepacking rides to Europe. His younger sister, Alice, died by suicide in 2022 before they could ride on his tandem together – something they’d often talked about. Unsure of what to do, Xani attended a local support group and found an abundance of hidden knowledge and kindness. Wanting to find a way to both honour Alice’s memory and share the experience that those affected by suicide develop, he devised a project: ‘Tandem Against Suicide’. This involved an 88-day, 4,000-mile tandem bicycle ride around the coastline of Great Britain. Each day he was joined by a different person affected by suicide. Xani and Yara Rodriguez Fowler co-authored My Horses, an essay that explores collaboration, grief and tandem riding published in Daunt’s recent collection Freewheeling.

Winning the Arvon Award feels like the wind has spun around and started blowing at my back. It’s a welcome push up the hill and it has given me the self-confidence to continue.

Tammie Meera Ash

Tammie Meera Ash is a writer from Bradford and an assistant producer working in unscripted TV. Before this, she worked and trained as a civil and structural engineer. She was part of the inaugural 2021–22 A Writing Chance programme set up by New Writing North and Michael Sheen, and has written for the New Statesman and VICE. In 2025, she received the Stacey Halls Bursary to attend an Arvon retreat, was shortlisted for the Sian Meades-Williams New Directions Award and was chosen as a Curtis Brown Breakthrough Scholar for her fiction novel-in-progress.

I’m so thrilled to have won a Northern Writers’ Award – this was not on my bingo card for 2025! It’s a huge confidence boost and a big motivation to keep writing. I can’t thank New Writing North enough for their continuous support and faith in me, and I wouldn’t be a writer without them!

Ciel Stynes

Ciel Stynes (they/them) is a non-binary, queer, neurodivergent disabled writer from North Yorkshire. Raised in Essex, they spent six years in France before they returned to the North. They now live in York. They started writing in 2018 to help cope with a life-changing diagnosis, and they are a firm believer in the power of creative expression for mental health. Their novel, The Drowning Game, has been listed for writing competitions (new2thescene, Retreat West), and their poetry and flash fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies including the York Literary Review, Bath Flash, National Flash Fiction Day and Poetry News. A fan of all things fantasy, when not writing they can be found with their nose in a book, camping, or beachcombing on the North East coast.

I’m thrilled to bits to win a Northern Writers’ Award! It’s so validating to have someone believe in me and to be given this opportunity is just incredible. I never thought it would happen to me! I almost didn’t enter because I thought I stood no chance, but I’m so thankful that I did. This means the absolute world to me, and I can’t wait to work with New Writing North and see what the next chapter holds. Thank you so much to the judges, TLC and New Writing North!

Sophi Su

Sophi Su is a creative, queer individual in high school, doing their GCSEs, who not only loves writing but also drawing, animating, and acting. Characters and stories are always present in their head; whether they are doodling an OC, animating, or writing a book, they always have ideas. They are very expressive and positive and enjoy performing unicorn dancing – a traditional Chinese dance similar to lion dancing – and doing kung fu. Their favourite genres are fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, although they are yet to read a horror story.

I’m honestly so surprised: I have never read a horror book or really written much horror (although I have watched a few movies and series), so I did not expect my story to win. I cannot express how grateful and ecstatic I am to receive this award. I am delighted that the judges enjoyed my work and I will continue to write and explore the many genres out there.

Eeva Tudor

Eeva Tudor is a secondary school pupil from Northumberland. She loves reading, writing, kickboxing and musical theatre. Her favourite genres of books are horror and fantasy. She is currently in the school choir and writes for the school newspaper. She also attends the Cramlington New Writing North Young Writers’ Group.

I am so happy that my writing was highly commended and even more pleased that the judges have recognised my writing a second time.

Charlie Jolley
Winner

Charlie Jolley is a poet and music journalist from Sheffield whose work often explores subculture, and is firmly grounded in social realism. She was a winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award in both 2023 and 2024, a runner up in the New Poets Prize 2024, and highly commended in the Tower Poetry Competition 2025. She has performed at Off The Shelf Festival of Words, The Making Waves Arts Festival, and The Leadmill, and has been published by places such as Verve Poetry Press and The North. She is a member of The Writing Squad.

Winning this award has made all those standstill hours staring at a blank page feel worthwhile, and it’s such an honour for my work to be recognised in this way.

Maisie Mair
Highly Commended

Maisie Mair is a poet and fiction writer and a member of Sheffield Young Writers. She was highly commended in Hive Young Writer’s Competition 2025. One of her favourite books is Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, because its extended metaphor, about the mad adventure of life, turns the mundane into the extraordinary, encouraging us to go on the journey no matter how daunting.

I feel really privileged to have been highly commended for the pieces of work I entered into the competition and it has inspired me to continue with my writing.

Vincent Phillips
Winner

Vincent Phillips is a young writer from Newcastle, who aims to bring to light real-world issues through the lens of fiction, and includes speculative aspects to his work as a way of reflecting reality through the impossible. He writes short stories and novels, and hopes to get a book of his own writing published one day.

The idea that someone has read my work and enjoyed it while not being related to me has given me the boost in confidence I needed to continue with my writing.

Haider Nazir
Highly Commended

Haider Nazir is a young writer from Sheffield and a member of Hive Young Writers Network. He is an alumnus of English teacher stars Ms Yassin and Ms Abdulla and sees writing as a positive mouthpiece for his emotions. The Kite Runner was the first book that helped him see what the power of words could achieve. His main aim as a writer is to intertwine culture, faith, ancestry, secrets, struggles, strengths, weaknesses together through words.

Lani Lajani

Lani Lajani is a writer who wrote about her journey to the UK. She also does ballet, which has taught her poise, and contemporary, which taught her how to dramatically collapse with flair – together, they made her unstoppable and slightly dramatic.

I am so proud of myself and I didn’t even expect that I would win this competition. My family is really proud and happy about the effort that I have put into my work. And I want to say that you can do anything that you want to do in your life.

Chanse Campbell

Chanse is a working-class writer from Leeds, who recently studied on the Screenwriting MA at the National Film & Television School as a BBC Scholar. Growing up mixed-race in the North, he rarely saw people like himself behind the stories being told on screen and so initially decided to pursue a more accessible career as a digital designer instead. Eventually finding his way back to writing again, however, he’s passionate about telling stories that often showcase the colourful spirit of the North, whilst also maintaining broader commercial appeal too. He is currently part of Film Hub North’s 2025 Script Lab Cohort.

Jack Hartley

Jack Hartley is a writer and director from Burnley, now based in Kendal, working across the North of England. Passionate about northern-centric comedies, Jack champions authentic casting and stories rooted in real communities. His recent short film Piece of Cake, starring Steve Evets, won Best Cinematography at the Manchester Film Festival 2024 and Best North West Short at Wigan & Leigh Film Festival. In 2025, Jack directed Jamie Webster’s music video Across The River, starring James Nelson-Joyce. Jack continues to develop bold, character-driven work that celebrates the humour, grit, and heart of the North. Jack was signed by United Agents in 2024 and his mockumentary The Baths, starring Alice Barry, was optioned and developed with House Productions. Jack recently directed a commercial for XBOX starring darts sensation, Luke Littler.

Cai Odu

Cai Odu is a Leeds-based screenwriter writing to showcase unexplored and under-represented worlds, cultures and characters on screen. Drawing from his personal loves, fears and conflicts, Cai combines sharp action, complex world-building and modern social context to deliver relatable stories that audiences can both relate to and escape through.

Tania Ferreyra

Tania is an Argentinian artist, playwright, and writer based in Sheffield. After leaving her work in criminal justice reform and with Stop Hate UK to become a full-time carer, she began to write short stories and scripts, going on to study Playwriting with the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. In 2023, she was selected for Sheffield Theatres’ prestigious Bank talent development programme. During her residency with the Crucible Theatre, she developed her first full-length play. In 2024, Tania was awarded Arts Council DYCP funding. Her bold, funny, thought-provoking stories amplify marginalised voices, exploring identity, power, disability and class.