Six emerging poets based in the North of England have been announced as the 2025 cohort of New Northern Poets. One of them is Jamie Field, winner of the inaugural Disabled Poets Prize in 2023.
The New Northern Poets programme includes a paid mentoring and development programme run by Word Up North and the University of Leeds Centre for Poetry.
We spoke to Jamie about his writing in an interview published on our website back in 2023. We’re really pleased to see his continued success as a writer.
Of the opportunity, Jamie said: “As a proud Northerner and lover of poetry it is a huge honour to be a member of this year’s cohort. I’m looking forward to an exciting few months.”
Find out more about the New Northern Poets programme on the Word Up North website. Congratulations Jamie!
class="post-75544 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news"Three Spread the Word alumna achieve places on London Libraries Emerging Writers Programme
Three alumna from across Spread the Word development programmes have been awarded places on London Libraries Emerging Writers Programme.
The London Library Emerging Writers Programme supports early-career writers who have not yet published a full-length work of fiction, non-fiction, collection of poems, or had a full-length work professionally produced for stage/screen. The programme lasts one year, running from July 2025 to June 2026.
There was huge competition to take part. From nearly 2,000 entries judges selected just 40 writers for the programme. We are thrilled that Early Career Bursary alumna Sarah Cotton, and London Writers Awardees Anne Elicaño-Shields and Aparna Surendra have all been awarded places.
Sarah Cotton writes fiction which blurs the lines between the psychological and the unreal. In 2024 she received a Spread the Word Early Career Bursary and was longlisted and shortlisted for the Commonwealth and Bridport short story prizes. Her novel follows sisters navigating shifting power balances under patriarchal social systems.
Anne Elicaño-Shields is a Filipino writer and international development professional. She is the inaugural winner of the Political Short Story Award (Word Factory), a Future Worlds Prize finalist, and has performed at the London Literature Festival (Southbank Centre). She is writing her second novel, a decolonized retelling of a 19th century Filipino epic poem.
Aparna Surendra is a Sri Lankan writer based in London. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the White Review Short Story prize and Wasafiri New Writing Prize. She is a 2025 Tin House resident and previous recipient of the London Writers Award. Aparna writes fiction alongside a career in digital rights.
Read all about the programme on the London Library website.
class="post-75541 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news"Two London Writers Awardees shortlisted for debut crime award
The McDermid debut award – a new award from the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Awards – seeks to celebrate and platform the best debut crime writers in the UK.
2021 London Writers Awards alumna, Nilesha Chauvet (Her Two Lives, 2024) and 2022 alumni Chris Bridges (Sick to Death, 2025) are both shortlisted for the prize.
You can listen to Nilesha, Chris and David Goodman, another shortlisted author for the prize, in conversation, on the prize website.
Prize winners will be announced at the opening ceremony of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival on Thursday 17 July.
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The London Writers Awards is our annual writer development programme, designed to launch the careers of writers underrepresented in UK publishing, including those who are Black, Asian and Global Majority, low-income, working-class upbringing, LGBTQIA+, and d/Deaf and disabled. The Awards are free to participate in, bursaries are available for writers on a low-income and there is also an access fund for disabled writers.
Submissions for the 2026 programme will open in September.
class="post-75536 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news"McKitterick Prize awarded to London Writers Award alumni Tom Newlands
Tom Newlands, a 2021 London Writers Awards Alumni, took home the McKitterick Prize at the 2025 Society of Authors Awards.
Tom Newlands’ debut novel, Only Here, Only Now, was awarded the McKitterick Prize at the Society of Authors Awards last month. The prize commends a first novel by an author over 40.
Six novels were in the running for the prize, of which judge Rebecca Foster said: “Each of these six novels has a fully realized style. So confident and inviting are they that it’s hard to believe they are debuts. With nuanced characters and authentic settings and dilemmas, they engage the mind and delight the emotions. I will be following these authors’ careers with keen interest.”
Ashani Lewis, another London Writers Awards alumni of the same year, took home two prizes at the awards.
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The London Writers Awards is our annual writer development programme, designed to launch the careers of writers underrepresented in UK publishing, including those who are Black, Asian and Global Majority, low-income, working-class upbringing, LGBTQIA+, and d/Deaf and disabled. The Awards are free to participate in, bursaries are available for writers on a low-income and there is also an access fund for disabled writers.
Submissions for the 2026 programme will open in September.
class="post-75531 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-news"London Writers Awards alumna Ashani Lewis takes home two prizes at Society of Authors’ Awards
2021 London Writers Awards Alumna Ashani Lewis took home an astonishing two awards at the Society of Authors awards last month.
Ashani Lewis took part in the London Writers Awards in 2021, developing her novel Winter Animals throughout the programme. She has now won not one, but two Society of Authors’ awards for the novel. Dialogue books have since, “acquired two ‘sharp, seductive’ novels and a short story collection from award-winning writer Ashani Lewis in a six-figure pre-empt” (The Bookseller).
Ashani has been awarded both the £10,000 Betty Trask Prize and the £4,000 Somerset Maugham Award for her novel Winter Animals, published by Dialogue Books. Judge Ellen Wiles described this extraodinary win as “a rare achievement.”
Read all about it in The Bookseller.
Tom Newlands, another alumni from the 2021 London Writers Awards programme, took home the McKitterick Prize at the same awards ceremony.
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The London Writers Awards is our annual writer development programme, designed to launch the careers of writers underrepresented in UK publishing, including those who are Black, Asian and Global Majority, low-income, working-class upbringing, LGBTQIA+, and d/Deaf and disabled. The Awards are free to participate in, bursaries are available for writers on a low-income and there is also an access fund for disabled writers.
Submissions for the 2026 programme will open in September.
class="post-75131 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-opportunities"Apply to join Poetics Lab, a new poetry programme for young writers
Are you a poet, spoken word artist or writer aged 18-30 and living in South East London? Are you interested in connecting with other young creatives and being part of Spread the Word’s Poetics Lab?
What is Poetics Lab?
Poetics Lab is a poetry programme for young people living in South East London. The programme will work towards an end-of-programme showcase in November 2025 and create work for the 2026 Deptford Literature Festival.
Sessions with different expert writers will help you develop your poetry writing skills and understand the publishing industry and the career opportunities available to poets.
- Some of the writers you’ll be working with are:
- Pascale Petit, an award-winning poet of French, Welsh and Indian heritage. Pascale’s work has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection and for Wales Book of the Year, won the inaugural Laurel Prize, Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize (for work that evokes a strong sense of place), and been the Poetry Book Society Choice.
- Malika Booker, a poet and multi-disciplinary artist of Guyanese and Grenadian Parentage. Malika is the founder of poetry collective Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. Her work has been shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and the Forward Prize.
- Victoria Kennefick, an Irish poet, writer and teacher from Shanagarry, Co. Cork. Her work has won the Seamus Heaney Prize for Best First Collection and The Dalkey Literary Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award, and been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, The Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and more.
- Alycia Pirmohamed, a Canadian-born poet based in Scotland, winner of the Nan Shephard Prize for her nonfiction debut, a member of nature writing project ‘field notes collective’, co-founder of the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, co-organiser of the Ledbury Poetry Critics Programme, and a teacher on the Creative Writing master’s programme at the University of Cambridge.
- Richard Scott, a poet, his debut collection, Soho was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Polari First Book Prize. He teaches poetry at the Faber Academy and is a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London
- Nii Ayikwei Parkes, a Ghanaian-British writer, editor, socio-cultural commentator and performance poet who has won acclaim as a children’s author, poet, broadcaster and novelist. Nii has won Ghana’s national ACRAG award for poetry and literary advocacy. His work has been translated into Italian, French, Chinese, Dutch, German and Arabic.
- Anthony Anaxagorou, a British-born Cypriot poet, fiction writer, essayist, publisher and poetry educator. His work has won the RSL Ondaatje Prize, has been shortlisted for the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Ledbury Munthe Poetry Prize for Second Collections. He is artistic director of Out-Spoken, a monthly poetry and music night held at London’s Southbank Centre, and publisher of Out-Spoken Press.
- Caroline Bird, an English poet and playwright who published her first poetry collection at just 15 years old. Her work has won the Forward Prize for Best Collection and been shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award, the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Prize and the Polari Prize. Bird’s work is celebrated for its masterful use of imagery, wit, and voice.
- Sarah Howe is a British poet and editor. Her first book, Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus, 2015), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. Born in Hong Kong to an English father and Chinese mother, she moved to England as a child. Her pamphlet, A Certain Chinese Encyclopedia (Tall-lighthouse, 2009), won an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. She has performed her work at festivals internationally and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. She is the Poetry Editor at Chatto & Windus.
- Fiona Benson, an English poet whose three collections have all been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her work has also won the 2015 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry’s Prize for First Full Collection, the Roehampton Poetry Prize and the Forward Prize for Best Collection.
- Ariana Benson is a southern Black poet born in Norfolk, Virginia. They have received the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Furious Flower Poetry Prize, the Porter House Review Poetry Prize, the Graybeal-Gowen Prize for Virginia Poets, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
These award-winning, successful writers will help you to develop your own creative work as well as guide the cohort towards the end of programme showcase in November, and the later presentation at Deptford Literature Festival in March 2026.
Who is Poetics Lab for?
Poetics Lab is open to anyone aged 18-30 living in South East London. As we’re based in Deptford in Lewisham, we’re especially interested in young creatives living in Lewisham, Bromley, Greenwich or Southwark.
It is for you if you…
- Are interested in creating poetry and spoken word or telling stories
- Want to have your voice heard on issues that matter to you
- Are only just starting to write, are thinking about starting, or already have some experience writing and/or performing
Why take part Poetics Lab?
As well as the opportunity to work directly with award-winning poets and writers, if you take part in Poetics Lab you will:
- Meet other young people interested in writing
- Learn new techniques to improve your poetry, writing and performance skills
- Become more confident in your voice as a poet, writer or spoken word artist
- Become part of a supportive creative community
- Get an insight into building a creative career
- Have your voice heard
- Take part in Deptford Literature Festival 2026
- Have fun and make new connections
When and where will Poetics Labs take place?
Poetics Labs sessions will run on Wednesdays from 6pm-8pm, alternating between in-person sessions at the Albany in Deptford, and online sessions. The address for the Albany is: Douglas Way, London, SE8 4AG.
Sessions will start on Wednesday 3 September and run weekly until Wednesday 26 November 2025.
Pizzas and refreshments will be provided at in-person sessions.
The end of programme showcase will take place on Wednesday 3 December. The Deptford Literature Festival event will take place on 28th March at Deptford Lounge.
Sign up to take part
If you’d like to become part of the Poetics Lab, please sign up using this form by 5pm on Tuesday 5 August 2025. We’ll be in touch with you by Friday 15 August 2025 to let you know about your place.
Access
If you need to request any adjustments to the application process or have any access requirements to take part in Poetics Labs, please get in touch with Courtney: [email protected].
A BSL video of this page will be made available shortly. If you’d like us to send it directly to you, please send a note to Courtney: [email protected]
The Albany has fully accessible toilets, a lift, and there is limited disabled parking is available as well. You can find more information about access in the building on their website. If you have any questions about access at the Albany, you can get in touch with their Venue and Events team. Marissa, Chris and Nicole and can be contacted by calling 020 8692 4446 or emailing [email protected].
Costs and travel bursaries
The Poetics Lab programme is free to take part in. If you need any financial support to attend, for example, to cover travel costs, please get in touch with Courtney: [email protected].
Lewisham, Borough of Literature
Poetics Labs is part of Spread the Word’s campaign to make Lewisham the UK’s first Borough of Literature. To find out more about the campaign and how you can take part, please visit the Borough of Literature project page.
Photo: a young writer performing at Deptford Literature Festival 2024, captured by Hayley Madden.