News | Monday, 16th May 2022

Manchester Writing Competition 2021 shortlists announced

UK’s biggest prize for unpublished writing celebrates Manchester as international city of writers

award-winning poet, Chair of the Poetry Prize judging panel and Lecturer in Creative Writing
Malika Booker, award-winning poet and Lecturer in Creative Writing is Chairing the Poetry Prize judging panel

Two international shortlists have been revealed for the Manchester Fiction Prize and Manchester Poetry Prize, which together make up the Manchester Writing Competition 2021, the UK’s biggest awards for unpublished writing.

Set up by then Poet Laureate and current Creative Director of Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University Professor Carol Ann Duffy in 2008, the competition has since awarded more than £200,000 in prize money.

The two awards celebrate Manchester as an international city of writers, finding diverse new voices, and creating opportunities for writer development. Each year two £10,000 prizes are awarded: the Manchester Poetry Prize for best portfolio of poems and the Manchester Fiction Prize for best short story.

The competition has helped to accelerate the careers of previous winners and finalists including Mona Arshi, Helen Mort, Alison Moore, Pascale Petit and Momtaza Mehri. 

Whittling down our (unofficial, unpublished) longlist to the final shortlist was nerve-shreddingly difficult, yet also a privilege and a pleasure.

This year’s Fiction Prize includes a best-selling author and Richard and Judy Bookclub Choice, an accountant, and emerging writers from the UK and Canada. The Poetry Prize features an international shortlist of award-winning poets from the UK, USA, Australia, Jamaica and the Philippines.

Fiction Prize judges said that choosing the six-strong shortlist was ‘nerve-shreddingly difficult’, while the Poetry Prize panel hailed entries ‘not afraid to experiment and push the boundaries of poetry’.

Manchester Fiction Prize shortlist

Manchester Poetry Prize shortlist

The winners will be announced at a special prize-giving evening on May 26, hosted in Manchester Metropolitan’s fantastic new home for Arts and Humanities, Grosvenor East.

Novelist and short story writer Nicholas Royle, Chair of the Fiction Prize judging panel and Reader in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan, said: “Many of the stories that didn’t make the final cut have stayed with us, and we hope to come across them again when they’ve found their place in the short story ecosphere. Whittling down our (unofficial, unpublished) longlist to the final shortlist was nerve-shreddingly difficult, yet also a privilege and a pleasure.”​

The Fiction Prize judging panel was completed by Hilaire and Simon Okotie.

Malika Booker, award-winning poet, Chair of the Poetry Prize judging panel and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan, said: “This year we were struck by the fact that most of the entries were not afraid to experiment and push the boundaries of poetry. Yet we were drawn to portfolios that felt considered as a collection, where the poems were in conversation with each other while demonstrating the poet’s range. We were struck by the strong distinctive sense of voice displayed by all our shortlisted poets, as well as their poetic ambitiousness.

“These poems delicately and rigorously grappled with heavy subjects ranging from personal illness, death, nature, historical and cultural norms with formal dexterity, lyrical delicacy, and a sonic precision that both haunted and mesmerised us. Even the darkest poems resonated a sense of wonder while grappling with what it means to be human. We found ourselves reading lines to each other and luxuriating at the richness of the language on our tongues. We are proud of this selection.”

The Poetry Prize judging panel was completed by Romalyn Ante and Zaffar Kunial.

This year we were struck by the fact that most of the entries were not afraid to experiment and push the boundaries of poetry.

Professor Jess Edwards, Head of English at Manchester Metropolitan University, added: “Integral to our Writing School’s mission to support writers at every stage of their development, the Manchester Writing Competition has drawn entries since its establishment from over eighty countries. I’m looking forward to discovering which writers on this year’s exciting shortlist will be joining the international community of past winners who have benefited from what can often be a transformative boost to their careers.”

The Manchester Writing Competition has been crucial in supporting emerging writers to get a foothold in the industry, providing winners with some financial security to focus on writing full-time, attract literary agents and get novels or collections published.

Previous winners include Arshi, who later won the Forward Prize, Mort, who is now a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and Ante, an NHS nurse whose debut collection Antiemetic for Homesickness was The Observer’s poetry book of the month in July 2020. Alison Moore, shortlisted for the Fiction Prize in 2009, went on to be in contention for the Booker Prize in 2012.

The Manchester Writing Competition 2020 awards were won by James Pollock and Ian Dudley.

2021 Fiction Prize Finalists

Danny Beusch: ‘The Firm’

Danny Beusch grew up in Peterborough but now lives in Birmingham. After obtaining a PhD in
Sociology he became an accountant. He started writing short stories in 2020 and has been highly commended in the Cambridge Short Story Prize, and shortlisted in the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize. He has recently been published in Confingo magazine. He is on Twitter: @OhDannyBoyShhh

Shelley Hastings: ‘What I Need To Tell You Now’


Shelley Hastings is a London-based writer. She is the winner of The Seán O'Faoláin Short Story Prize 2021 and of The Aurora Short Fiction Prize 2021. Her stories have been published by Southword Journal, Mechanics Institute Review and The Galley Beggar Press, and are forthcoming from Dear Damsels and Thi Wurd. She is currently working as a projects manager with dementia charity Resonate Arts, has been a carer with Age UK, and is a collaborator with theatre company 1927. She has just completed her debut collection of short stories, Can You Feel It?, and is working on a novel.

Sarah Hegarty: ‘The Ishtar Pin’

Sarah Hegarty is a novelist and short story writer. Her short fiction has been published by Mslexia, Cinnamon Press and the Mechanics’ Institute Review, among others, and her non-fiction is included in the recent 100 Voices anthology (Unbound, 2022). She studied Mandarin at university and has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester. Her second novel, drawing on her experience of living in Beijing in 1980, is out with agents and she is working on her third, inspired by her Irish heritage. She is writer in residence at George Abbot School, Guildford.

Leone Ross: ‘When We Went Gallivanting’

Leone Ross is a three-time novelist, short story writer and editor. Her work has been variously nominated for the Edge Hill, Jhalak, OCM Bocas and Goldsmiths awards and her most recent novel This One Sky Day (Faber) was longlisted for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Ross is the editor of Glimpse, the first Black British anthology of speculative short stories, out with Peepal Tree Press in 2022. The Times Literary Supplement described her as a “master of detail, whose world materialises in…precisely placed dots of colour”.

Nicholas Ruddock: ‘Sweet Boy’



Nicholas Ruddock is a Canadian physician and writer. He has published three novels and a short story collection in Canada, most recently Last Hummingbird West of Chile, 2021. In the UK and Ireland, he has been shortlisted for the London Sunday Times Short Story Award 2016, the Moth Poetry Prize 2019, and he has twice placed first in the Bridport Prize Competition. He has also had poetry in Irish Pages. See NicholasRuddock.com for details, and to watch, for just two minutes, a video for Hummingbird.

Naomi Wood: ‘Quarry’

Naomi Wood is a novelist and short-story writer based in Norwich. She is the bestselling author of The Godless Boys, Mrs. Hemingway and The Hiding Game. Mrs Hemingway won a Jerwood Prize, was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize, and was a Richard and Judy Bookclub Choice. The Hiding Game was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown. Naomi lives in Norwich with her family, and teaches Creative Writing at UEA. She is currently working on her first collection of short stories, entitled Anti-Mother.

Read the 2021 shortlisted stories

2021 Poetry Prize Finalists

Courtney Conrad


Courtney Conrad is a Jamaican poet. She is an alumna of The London Library Emerging Writers Programme, Malika's Poetry Kitchen, Barbican Young Poets, Obsidian Foundation and Roundhouse Poetry Collective. She is a Bridport Prize Young Writers Award recipient. She has been shortlisted for The White Review Poet's Prize, Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition and Poetry Wales Pamphlet Competition and longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Women Poets’ Prize and The Rialto Nature and Place Competition. Her poems have appeared in Magma Poetry, Poetry Wales, The White Review, Bath Magg, Stand Magazine and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal.

Laura Paul Watson

Laura Paul Watson lives and writes in Pine, Colorado. She is a graduate of the MFA programme at the University of Florida. When not writing, she works as a General Contractor in Denver, Colorado, remodelling homes with her husband. She has placed second in the Bridport Poetry Prize and her work has also appeared in Agni, Poetry Ireland Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal, among others.

Peter Ramm

Peter Ramm is a poet who writes on the Gundungarra lands of the New South Wales Southern Highlands. His work appears in Cordite, Westerly, Plumwood Mountain, The Rialto, Eureka Street Journal and the Red Room Company. His poems have won the South Coast Writers Centre Poetry Award and the Harri Jones Memorial Award, and have shortlisted in the Bridport, ACU, Blake, and Newcastle Poetry Prizes. In 2021 he placed 3rd in The Rialto's Nature and Place Competition and was awarded residencies at the Wollongong Botanic Gardens and WestWord’s Daffodil Cottage. His debut poetry collection Waterlines is forthcoming in 2022 with Vagabond Press.

Alyza Taguilaso


Alyza Taguilaso is a resident doctor training in General Surgery at Ospital ng Muntinlupa in the Philippines. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and published in several publications, including Fantasy Magazine, Strange Horizons, ANMLY, High Chair, Stone Telling, and Kritika Kultura. She is working on her forthcoming book, Juggernaut. You can find her at wordpress (@alyzataguilastorm) or instagram (@ventral).

Jane Wilkinson

Jane Wilkinson currently lives in Norwich. In 2021 she won the Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize and in 2020 received 1st and 2nd place in the Guernsey International Poetry Prize; 1st place in the Strokestown International Poetry Prize and Norfolk Prize: Café Writers competition. She won the Against the Grain Press competition and was shortlisted in Alpine Fellowship Prize in 2019. She is published (or forthcoming) in magazines including Under the Radar, Magma, The Alchemy Spoon, Ink Sweat & Tears, Envoi, Finished Creatures, Lighthouse Journal, Fenland Reed and is in anthologies from Emma Press, Live Canon and Dempsey & Windle.

April Yee

April Yee is a writer and translator published in Salon, The Times Literary Supplement, and Ploughshares online. She reported in more than a dozen countries before moving to London, where she is a National Book Critics Circle Fellow, Ledbury Poetry Critic, Refugee Journalism Project mentor, and the University of East Anglia’s Malcolm Bradbury Memorial Scholar. In 2021, she was editor-in-residence at The Georgia Review, the Community of Writers’ Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholar, and listed for the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize, the Alpine Fellowship, the Women’s Prize Trust’s Discoveries, and the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. She tweets at @aprilyee.

Read the 2021 shortlisted poems

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