The Martha Mills Young Writers’ Prize 2024: the Winners!
Posted by the Bookshop
In this second year of the prize, we are delighted again to have had more than a thousand entries. The young writers made the judges’ task very hard: there were hundreds of original interpretations of this year’s theme – ‘A Secret’. The stories transported us to fairgrounds, rooftops, dusty attics, classrooms and below the earth; there were tales of superpowers, spies, the trials of friendships and family confidences. We looked again for novelty of treatment and writing flair and could not have been more impressed. We salute the three winners, and the runners-up also due to be published in the prize pamphlet; we also salute and thank those English teachers and school librarians who have supported the prize and encouraged their students.
Our three winners, who will each receive £200 and a selection of books, are Sophia Austin, Isla Barrack and Noa Spencer-Brown. Congratulations to all three!
Our runners-up, whose stories will appear in the prize pamphlet alongside the winners, are Amelia Bahrani, Alice G Baxter, Rosa Caughie, Iris Clarke, Pru Gallon, Florence Hayman, Jane Lee, Chloe Oulahan, Bryan Kim Short, Leo Smith, Romilly Stansfield and Annette Wong. (A special congratulations to Leo Smith, whose surreal sense of humour has earned him a place in the pamphlet two years running!)
Philip Pullman, one of this year’s judges, identified in the stories ‘passionate emotion, warmly and truthfully conveyed’, a ‘vivid sense of things hidden and unknown’ and pieces of writing that were ‘urgent and lifelike’. ‘I would like to congratulate all the writers,’ he has said, ‘not only on having written these particular stories, but on having read widely and enjoyed what they’ve read.’
We’ll be contacting the winners and runners-up via email this week. This year’s prize pamphlet will be available to buy in the Bookshop and online by the end of the month.
