The SI Leeds Literary Prize was recently featured on BBC Radio Leeds with Prize Director Fiona Goh and 2016 winner, Amita Murray.
This year’s winner will receive £3,000, the runner-up will get £1,250, and there will be a third prize of £750. The award’s Prize Plus programme also supports shortlisted writers through a programme of events, workshops, manuscript assessment and 1:1 coaching.
Amita Murray, who won last year’s prize, said: “The publishing industry doesn’t always know what to do with our confusing ‘diverse’ voices and it is awards like this one that blaze the way forward.”
Amita has since landed a two-book deal with Harper Collins and her debut novel, Finding Rose, is due to be released in 2019. She added: “For anything good that happens in my writing career, in my mind it will all go back to this award. Writing is a mad, lonely career path for anyone to choose, where you wake up every morning feeling a bit sick, wondering if you’re going to write anything good ever again. So to get the validation of the prize was an incredibly awe-inspiring and humbling thing for me.”
Winnie M Li was runner-up in the 2016 award. Her debut novel Dark Chapter, has seen much success. She said: “I’ve had the chance to meet an amazing group of women writers through the shortlist, and their support and encouragement has meant a great deal to me— along with the support of the Prize committee. I don’t think I’d have gotten this far without the prize: a year later, and my novel’s won The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize!”
Other winners include Kit de Waal, author of My Name is Leon, who has a three book deal with Penguin; Mahsuda Snaith who is the author of The Things We Thought We Knew, and Karen Onojaife who has been signed by Curtis Brown.