An accomplished panel of judges have assessed this year’s shortlisted entries.
Ahdaf Soueif is the author of the bestselling The Map of Love (Booker Prize shortlist, 1999) which has been translated into more than 30 languages, In the Eye of the Sun (1992), I Think of You (2007) and Cairo: a City Transformed (2014), her account of the Egyptian revolution of 2011. She is also a political and cultural commentator. Her Mezzaterra (2004) has been influential and her articles for The Guardian are published in the European and American press. In 2007 Ahdaf founded the Palestine Festival of Literature which takes place in the cities of occupied Palestine and Gaza.
Ahmed Masoud is a writer and director who grew up in Palestine and moved to the UK in 2002. His theatre credits include Go to Gaza, Drink the Sea (London and Edinburgh 2009), Escape from Gaza (BBC Radio 4, 2011), Walaa, Loyalty (London 2014, funded by Arts Council England) and The Shroud Maker (London 2015). Ahmed is the founder of Al Zaytouna Dance Theatre where he wrote and directed several productions which have toured Europe. After finishing his PhD research, Ahmed published many journals and articles including a chapter in Britain and the Muslim World: A Historical Perspective (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011). His debut novel, Vanished – The Mysterious Disappearance of Mustafa Ouda was released in 2015.
Alex Kanefsky is a writer, performer and storyteller. He has told stories in schools, libraries, tents, caravans, forests, old stables, bookshops and museums. He is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Paper Balloon Theatre Company, telling original tales for young people and their families. He writes stories, poems, plays and film scripts. He studied Drama at the University of Exeter, then worked as a gardener, barista and binman amongst other things whilst trying out different ways of telling stories. He continues to be inspired by young people to work, experiment and play.
Amanda Lees is the author of the bestselling satirical novels Selling Out and Secret Admirer (Pan) which have both received critical acclaim and have been translated into several languages. Her major teen trilogy, KUMARI, was nominated for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Amanda has a degree in drama and her first TV role was as a member of the Communist Resistance in ‘Allo ‘Allo. Amanda appears regularly on BBC radio and LBC and was a contracted writer to the hit series Weekending on Radio 4. She has appeared on Richard & Judy and on Channel 5 Live. Her short film Pros and Cons was awarded at the Hungarian Film Festival and she has several other projects in development. Amanda has completed a crime thriller set in Bulgaria and is currently working on a new psychological thriller as well as a book about her mother who set up a hospital in the jungle in Borneo.
Amerah Saleh is a spoken word artist, workshop facilitator, host, project coordinator and human rights supporter. Amerah won the Art Award at Youth 4 Excellence and become the Overall Youth 4 Excellence Award Winner in 2015. She aims to inspire social change through the creative arts and has performed across the country. She has received commissions from Channel 4, Eastern Electronic Festival, TedxBrum and REP Theatre amongst others. Through her initiative Creative Superheroes, she has helped develop and support young artists in Birmingham receive paid work and commissions. She was invited to an audience with Prince William for her work with young people through her innovative workshop programmes.
Brian Bilston is a poet, perhaps best known for sharing his verse on Twitter and Facebook. Described by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme as ‘rhyme’s rapid reaction force’, he was the winner of the 2015 Great British Write Off competition and has served as Poet-in-Residence for the World Economic Forum. His first collection of poems, You Took the Last Bus Home, published with Unbound in October 2016.
Caleb Femi is the Young People’s Laureate for London. As a poet his works are often described as vivid and honest delivered with an essence of musicality. Caleb has performed at the Roundhouse mainstage, Barbican, Rich Mix, Royal Festival Hall and many festivals including Latitude, Ed Fringe, Boomtown, Lovebox, Greenbelt amongst others. Caleb has also won the Roundhouse Poetry Slam and Genesis Poetry Slam and is currently working on a debut pamphlet. As a workshop facilitator, Caleb has led poetry workshops in schools in East and North London.
Chirine El Ansary is an actress, performer and storyteller who grew up between Egypt and France. She is dedicated to story-performing with a deep interest in how words, voice, movement merge to create atmospheres, generate emotions, convey precise images. From 1995 to 2004 she performed mainly in ancient buildings in the old city of Cairo and in the streets, markets, old palaces of Tunis, Damascus, Asilah, Taza, Aleppo. Since then, she has performed her repertoire of stories and devised performances internationally. Her radio work includes a contribution to Naguib Mahfouz’s Trilogy and regular recordings of her own stories for RFI/MC-Doualiya. She enjoys joining the Cairo based Athar Lina organisation performing for the residents of El-Khalifa district near the great Citadel.
Cornelia Funke is a writer of magical stories. Following a post-graduate course in book illustration at the Hamburg State College of Design, Cornelia Funke worked as an illustrator and designer of children’s books. Unfulfilled by the drawings she was commissioned to create, she began to write her own stories filled with fantastic and otherworldly creatures she longed to draw. It was then she discovered the storyteller that had been inside her all along.She is the author of The Thief Lord, Dragon Rider, the Inkworld series, the Ghosthunters series, When Santa Fell to Earth, Igraine the Brave and the Reckless series.
David Solomons has been writing screenplays for many years. His first feature film was an adaptation of Five Children and It (starring Kenneth Branagh and Eddie Izzard, with gala screenings at the Toronto and Tribeca Film Festivals). My Brother is a Superhero is his first novel for children.
Emily Berry‘s debut book of poems, Dear Boy (Faber & Faber, 2013) won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Hawthornden Prize. She is the editor of Best British Poetry 2017 (Salt Publishing) and a contributor to The Breakfast Bible (Bloomsbury, 2013). Her second collection, Stranger, Baby, is forthcoming in 2017.
Gillian Clarke, National Poet for Wales from 2008-2016, was born in Cardiff and lives in Ceredigion. She was awarded the Queen’s Gold medal for Poetry in December 2010, the Wilfred Owen Award in 2012. Recent books include a writer’s journal, At the Source, and The Christmas Wren, a children’s story for grown ups. Her latest collection, Ice, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Award 2012. She has written for radio, and translated poetry and prose from Welsh. The Gathering/Yr Helfa, written for the National Theatre of Wales, was performed on Snowdon in September, 2014. She is currently working on Zoology, a collection of poems.
Gwyneth Rees is half Welsh and half English and grew up in Scotland. She studied medicine and qualified as a doctor, working as a child and adolescent psychiatrist before she became a full-time writer. Her bestselling books include the Fairy Dust series, Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze and The Mum Hunt, winner of the Red House Award.
Haifa Zangana is an author and activist. She has published three novels and four collections of short stories among her other books; City of Widows, Dreaming of Baghdad and The Torturer in the Mirror“, together with Ramsy Clark and Thomas Ehrlich Reifer. She is a founding member of International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies (IACIS), co-founder of Tadhamun; Iraqi Women Solidarity, was an adviser for the United Nations Development Programme report Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World (2005) and she is a consultant at United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. She is a weekly columnist for Al Quds Al Arabi, contributes to British and US media, and lectures regularly on Iraqi culture and women’s issues. Her current project focuses on encouraging women ex detainees in Palestine and Tunisia to write their experiences in prison.
Inua Ellams is a cross art form practitioner, a poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist and designer. He is the founder of the Midnight Run, an international, arts-filled, night-time walking experience. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and a designer at White Space Creative Agency. Across his work, identity, displacement and destiny are reoccurring themes in which he also tries to mix traditional African storytelling with contemporary poetry, pencil with pixel, and texture with vector images. His three books of poetry are published by Flipped Eye and Akashic Books, and several plays by Oberon.
Jonathan Ruppin is Literary Director at digital start-up Orson & Co and the founder of the English PEN Translated Literature Book Club. He was a bookseller for 18 years, including 13 at Foyles’ flagship branch on Charing Cross Road. He is a regular contribute to the publishing trade press and chairs literary events at a wide range of venues.
Jules Haworth is Education Producer at Soho Theatre and runs Writers’ Lab and Comedy Lab for young artists. She has read for a number of playwriting competitions including the Verity Bargate Award, Soho Young Playwrights and Soho Young Writers’ Award. As a freelance dramaturg Jules has worked on shows including Brute by Izzy Tennyson (Ideas Tap Underbelly Award 2015, Underbelly), Muscovado by Matilda Ibini (Alfred Fagon Award 2015, Theatre 503), Your Image by Gemma Copping (Soho Young Writers’ Award 2013) Villain by Martin Murphy (Edinburgh Fringe 2016, 4* The Stage), On The Edge of Me by Yolanda Mercy (Soho Theatre and tour) and The Dogs of War by Tim Foley (Old Red Lion). Jules has also appeared as a panellist for Sphinx Theatre’s Women Centre Stage and as a judge for Directors Cut (Pleasance Theatre). Her play Pigeon Steps was longlisted for the Adrian Pagan Award 2014.
Kate Wakeling is a poet and ethnomusicologist. Her poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Magma, Oxford Poetry, The Guardian, The Best British Poetry 2014 (Salt) and The Forward Book of Poetry 2016 (Faber & Faber). Her first collection of children’s poetry, Moon Juice, is published by the Emma Press and a pamphlet of poetry for adults, The Rainbow Faults, is published by The Rialto. Kate is writer-in-residence with Aurora Orchestra and her scripts, stories and verse for family audiences have featured at the Melbourne Festival, the bOing! Festival and on BBC Radio 3. She studied music at Cambridge University and is a research fellow at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance.
Kathryn White has over 30 books published for children of all ages. When They Fight, her first picture book, was selected as a notable book for social studies by the US Libraries Association and Here Comes the Crocodile, was shortlisted for both the Nottingham and Sheffield Children’s Book Awards. Most recently, her picture book Ruby’s School Walk was shortlisted for the Boston Globe’s Best Read Aloud Book Award in the USA. She is a regular performer at the Edinburgh, Bath and other major literature festivals and frequently holds school events on creative writing. Kathryn has been a creative writing tutor for adults at HMP Shepton Mallet and a consultant on raising literacy standards in early years’ education. She is also a qualified TESOL teacher and runs several courses for foreign language students. Kathryn has been heavily involved in the campaign to keep libraries open in Somerset.
Marcus Sedgwick is an award-winning author of many prizes, most notably the Michael L. Printz Award 2014, for his novel Midwinterblood. Marcus has also received two Printz Honors, for Revolver in 2011 and The Ghosts of Heaven in 2016. Other notable awards include Floodland, which won the Branford-Boase Award 2001, for best debut novel for children; My Swordhand is Singing won the Booktrust Teenage Prize 2007, and Lunatics and Luck won a Blue Peter Book Award 2011. His books have been shortlisted for over forty other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (six times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award (two times) and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize (four times).
Marcus was Writer in Residence at Bath Spa University for three years, reviews for The Guardian newspaper and teaches creative writing at Arvon and Ty Newydd. He is currently working on film and book projects with his brother, Julian, as well as a graphic novel with Thomas Taylor. He has judged numerous books awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Costa Book Awards.
Nicola Davies is the author of more than forty books for children, fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her work has been published in more than ten languages and has won major awards in the UK, the US, France, Italy and Germany. Nicole trained as a zoologist and her work focuses on nature and human relationships with the natural world. She has been a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and now regularly runs workshops for children and adults to help them find their voices as writers and advocates for nature.
Patrice Lawrence was born in Brighton, brought up in mid-Sussex and moved to London in 1994. She loved reading as a child which led her to writing her own poems and stories, taking inspiration from everyday sight and experiences. Patrice’s short stories have been featured in a variety of publications including the teen magazine True Romances, and Closure, an anthology of contemporary Black and Asian British writing. Orangeboy, Patrice’s first full length novel for young adults was published in June 2016.
Roopa Farooki was born in Pakistan and brought up in London. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at New College, Oxford, and turned to writing after careers in corporate finance and advertising. She has published six novels to critical acclaim and has been listed three times for the Orange Prize. She has been longlisted for the Impact Dublin literary award DSC prize for South Asian literature. In 2013 she was awarded the John C. Laurence prize from the Authors’ Foundation, for writing which improves understanding between races and she was given an Arts Council Literature award. Roopa’s novels are published in the US and in translation in thirteen countries. Her latest novel, The Good Children, was named “outstanding novel of the year” by the Daily Mail in the 2014 books round up. Roopa is currently studying medicine at St George’s University of London, and teaches creative writing on the Masters programme at the University of Oxford.
Safeerah Mughal is a seventeen-year-old award-winning writer and poet. In 2015 she was invited to 10 Downing Street to celebrate her achievements in writing. She was shortlisted for First Story’s National Writing Competition and was awarded the Key Stage 4 Short Story and Poetry prizes at the Young Muslim Writers Awards 2015. She shared her award-winning poetry at TEDxTeen 2016 at the O2, which was live-streamed to over 150 countries. She future goal is to make a living from mastering the alchemy of thoughts and occasionally writing them down.
SF Said‘s first book, Varjak Paw (2003), won the Smarties Prize for Children’s Literature. It has since been adapted as a stage play and an opera, and a film version is in development. The sequel, The Outlaw Varjak Paw (2005), won the Blue Peter Book of The Year. His third book, Phoenix (2013), was selected to represent the UK on the IBBY International Honour Book List, shortlisted for The Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, and nominated for both the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals. He has written widely on children’s and young adult literature for both The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, and is the founder of the #CoverKidsBooks campaign.
Shahida Rahman is an award-winning author, writer and publisher. She was born and raised in Cambridge. Her highly acclaimed historical novel, Lascar was published in 2012. Lascar was shortlisted for the Muslim Writers Awards’ Unpublished Novel Award in 2008. Other works include The Integration of the Hijab into Police Uniforms (Behind the Hijab Anthology, 2009) and The Lascar (radio play, 2009). Shahida has contributed articles on a range of social issues to numerous publications, including Best of British, The Great War, Sisters magazine, Huffington Post and Asian World. Shahida won a British Muslim Award for ‘Arts and Cultural Awareness’ in January 2015. She is currently writing her second novel.
Shemiza Rashid is a multi-award winning interfaith art practitioner, producer, broadcaster, sixth form teacher, media consultant and mother of six. She is the founder of the children’s performing arts clubs Creative Muslim Network and Shining Ummah. Shemiza is a growing voice across the community and regional radio, where she presents the dynamic Urban Kube show on InspireFM and regularly features as and guest panellist on BBC Asian Network and BBC Three Counties Radio. Shemiza has also produced the celebrity cooking show For the Love of Food on Islam Channel. She was presented the Asian Women of Achievement Award for Public Service in 2014 and she was shortlisted for Best Female Muslim Radio Presenter and Most Innovative Radio show at the Momo Awards. She is currently an artivist and media trainer for Revolution Arts, writing and performing alongside leading spoken word poets, theatre practitioners, artists and activists.
Sufiya Ahmed is the award-winning author of Secrets of the Henna Girl (2012, Puffin Books) which was chosen as Best Teenage Book at the Redbridge Children’s Book Award 2013 and earned her the Brit Writers Awards’ Published Writer of the Year prize 2012. The novel was also shortlisted for the North East Teen Book Award and Rotherham Children’s Book Award, highly commended at the Sheffield Children’s Book Award and translated into Arabic, Spanish and Polish. She is the Founder and Director of the BIBI Foundation, a non-profit organisation which encourages the involvement of under-privileged children in the democratic process through visits to the Houses of Parliament. Sufiya is a full-time writer and visits schools with her author sessions to raise awareness of Girl’s Rights. She regularly contributes to the Huffington Post.
Sumayya Lee was born in South Africa during the Apartheid Era. Her debut, The Story of Maha (Kwela, 2007) was shortlisted for Best First Book – Africa at the Commonwealth Writers Prize and longlisted for The Sunday Times Fiction Award. The novel is currently on the English Undergraduate curriculum at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. In 2009 Sumayya published the sequel: Maha, Ever After. In 2014 and 2015 Sumayya joined Writivism as a mentor and an editor for the annual anthologies. In 2016, she served as judge alongside Tsitsi Dangarembga and others at the annual Writivism Festival in Kampala and is currently Writivism’s Editorial and Programmes Liaison. She is currently re-working an old manuscript and writing the third Maha novel. Sumayya has co-edited the 2015 anthology Roses for Betty and Other Stories with Emmanuel Sigauke and has written for O Magazine and Woman & Home (SA) and has been interviewed in South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Australia and the UK.
Tamara Macfarlane is the owner of the award-winning children’s bookshop Tales on Moon Lane in Herne Hill, south London. She has always had a passion for child literacy and opened Tales on Moon Lane while she was still teaching full-time. She has judged the Costa Children’s Book Award, the UKLA Book Award and the Branford Boase Book Award and has appeared at Bath, Oxford, Just Imagine, Hay and Southwark Libraries Festivals as an author and bookseller. Tamara is the author of the Amazing Esme series and the co-author of the Dylan’s Amazing Dinosaurs series.
Tim Robertson became Director of the Royal Society of Literature in 2015. Founded in 1820 by Royal Charter, the Society is governed by 500 Fellows who are the UK’s most distinguished writers. Previously Tim worked for fourteen years as a social worker and manager of children’s services in the London Borough of Camden, and for nine years as Chief Executive of the Koestler Trust, Britain’s national charity for arts by prisoners. Tim has a BA in English from King’s College London, an MA in American Literature from the State University of New York, and an MSc in Applied Social Studies from Worcester College, Oxford. He served for a decade on the editorial board of Magma poetry magazine.
Tom Palmer is the multi-award winning author of thirty-seven children’s books, including the Football Academy series, the Foul Play series and The Squad published by Puffin Books. Foul Play was shortlisted for the 2009 Blue Peter Book Award; Black Op was awarded the 2013 Solihull Children’s Book of the Year; and Ghost Stadium won the 2014 Leicester Libraries’ Our Best Book Award. Tom’s stories involve spies, detectives, ghosts and war scenarios and are often set in the worlds of football and rugby.
Zanib Mian is the Founder and Director of Sweet Apple Publishers and Muslim Children’s Books and author of twelve picture books which aim to fight prejudice. Sweet Apple’s books have been praised by The Guardian and featured on the BBC’s CBeebies Bedtime Stories. Muslim Children’s Books launched with the release of two books, one of which is in collaboration with the Dawah Project with the support of Islam Channel.