Lucy Cavendish College, part of the University of Cambridge, has published a shortlist of six authors for its 2021 Fiction Prize. This was the biggest year yet for the Prize, which received an incredible total of over 750 entries. This is a hotly contested competition with many shortlisted authors in previous years being offered agency representation and publishing contracts.
2021 Shortlist
Girls Like Us by Julie Bull
The Anatomist’s Wife by Charlotte Wightwick
The Mirador by Sally Skinner
Nobody’s Wife by Elena Casas
The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron
The Messenger by Megan Davis
The authors selected for the 2021 shortlist will now be nervously waiting for the judging panel to agree a winner, to be announced at a virtual event on 27th May.
Thanks to the generosity of Fellow Emerita and judge, Dr Isobel Maddison, editor and ghost-writer, Gillian Stern, and 2020 shortlisted author, Laure Van Rensburg, we were able to offer fourteen sponsored entries for low income writers.
The 2021 judging panel welcomes Ansa Khan Khattak, Commissioning Editor at Picador and Dr Isobel Maddison, Fellow Emerita of Lucy Cavendish College where she was College Lecturer and Director of Studies in English. Returning to the panel are political journalist, broadcaster and Honorary Fellow of the College Jackie Ashley (after leaving the College as its eight President), editor and ghost-writer Gillian Stern, Emeritus Fellow, Lindsey Traub and poet, crime writer and Honorary Fellow of the College, Sophie Hannah. Journalist and author Allison Pearson will chair the 2021 panel. Returning to the panel is agent, Tim Bates, from our valued literary sponsor, Peter Fraser Dunlop.
Dr Lindsey Traub said they were “spoiled for choice again this year! So much good writing and variety. This prize just gets better and better.”
College President, Dame Madeleine Atkins said:
“Many congratulations to our shortlisted authors for this outstanding success. We are delighted to help new authors on their journey to publication, and wish them all the very best for the next stage of the competition and beyond.”