We’re delighted to announce the shortlist for the 2024 SI Leeds Literary Prize:
- Trapped Between Two Worlds – Maeve Clarke
- God in a Butcher’s Shop – Nazish Khan-Lane
- Wildwood – Angelita Lapuz Bradney
- Da – Arathi Menon
- The House that Jack Built and other stories – Jac Shreeves-Lee
- Welcome Home – Pauline Walker
Congratulations to our shortlisted writers!
The 1st, 2nd, 3rd prize and SI Readers’ Choice award winners will be announced in an online ceremony on Wednesday 13 November at 1pm, hosted by Ilkley Literature Festival.
Meet our shortlisted writers:
Maeve Clarke
Maeve Clarke is a teacher from Birmingham. She was the writer for the Opening Ceremony of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, working with co-director, Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders). Her first novel, What Goes Round was published by Tindal Street Press. Her work has been longlisted for the Mslexia Children & YA Novel Award and the Bath Children’s Novel award. She is published in various anthologies – Whispers in the Walls: An anthology of Black and Asian Voices (2003), Women and Work – Monologues (2020) and Forward: Birmingham Stories (2024). Her play, Jackanooni was shortlisted for the Sky Arts RSL Award for playwriting (2022) with and longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, Theatre 503 and the Papatango New Writing Prize (2018/19). She won the Creative Futures Literary Award for prose with Sewing Flowers (2016). Maeve’s educational writing includes Readers and adaptations of contemporary novels for students of English as a Second Language. Her adaptation of Boys Don’t Cry (by Malorie Blackman) won a Language Literature Learner Award in 2023. Maeve has lived and worked in Spain, Italy and China. She is currently working on Soul Snatcher – a literary fiction horror novel set between Jamaica/UK.
Nazish Khan-Lane
Nazish Khan-Lane is a writer and playwright with an MA in Stage and Screenplays. She is also a graduate of the Faber Academy. Her short films have won the LA 48-hour Film Project and been screened in Mumbai to mark Transgender Day. Her stage plays have received 5-star reviews and she has toured internationally with the immersive theatre and dining experience EAT, a provocative mix of religion and politics over dinner. Other works have been short-listed for the Verity Bargate and Amnesty International awards.In collaboration with NGOs, social media houses and schools, Nazish has specialised in using art as a vehicle for change in “countering-extremism” tackling Islamophobia, the Far-Right, anti-Semitism and homophobia. Her creative interest lies in putting humans under a magnifying glass and pulling off their wings. GOD IN A BUTCHER’S SHOP is her debut novel. It is about inherited damage, parental neglect and the Pygmalion we create to love in its place. It is also about art and women of colour. It has been short-listed for the Mslexia Novel Award and was Readers’ Choice for the inaugural Goldfinch Prize. She is currently working on her second book exploring PTSD through a lifetime of houses and homes.
Angelita Lapuz Bradney
Angelita Lapuz Bradney is a writer with British and Filipino heritage. Her work has won or been placed in several writing competitions, including the Fish Prize, Inktears, City Writes, and Shooter Literary Magazine. Her short stories also appear in many online publications and two charity anthologies. She has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, and is a graduate of the Faber Academy.
Angelita’s writing explores family dynamics, fables, and the memory of people and places. Her shortlisted novel, WILDWOOD, is a family drama entwined with ghosts and folklore. It’s inspired by her mother’s tumultuous childhood in the northern Philippines, a mountainous region known for its rice terraces, hanging coffins, and former headhunting tribes.
Angelita lives in London with her family and cat. When not writing, she works as a secondary school maths teacher. www.angelitabradney.com
Arathi Menon
Arathi Menon is an author and a columnist based in London. She completed her MA in Creative Writing Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. Pan Macmillan, India published her first book, a memoir, Leaving Home With Half A Fridge. She also received a highly commendable mention at the FAB Prize for her middle grade mystery novel, A Thud In The Middle Of The Night. A hat-tip to Enid Blyton, it was published by DC Books, India. It was also published by an indie New York publisher, Yali Books, titled A Mystery at Lili Villa (‘an homage to small-town life in Kerala, India. … a sprightly, amusing read’ – Kirkus Review). Her unpublished novel, Da, has been on numerous longlists and shortlists. She has also been shortlisted for the UA 100X100, Penguin Write Now programme and longlisted for the Ivan Jurtiz prize. Her stories feature in two anthologies – A Suitcase of Small Stories (Normal Deviation: A Weird Fiction Anthology, UK) and The Travelling Amumma (Grandma Tales, India). She was part of a group installation at Tate Modern, London, where she used her text in an experimental way to amplify narratives outside of a written context. On Instagram, you will find her @jungletalkies and she tweets @ArathiMen0n.
Jac Shreeves-Lee
Jac Shreeves-Lee – People came to our home when they were in trouble – money trouble, landlord trouble, man trouble – and my parents helped as best as they could. Sometimes they offered soft words, other times a small envelope containing a few notes to tide the person over was given, or the sofa in the living room was offered for a night’s sleep. Dad said, ‘The world takes big bites out of you, Jac, so it’s important to have people around you to put the stuffing back.’ I grew up in a Windrush family where helping was like breathing because my sense was that if we couldn’t turn to one another when trouble struck then eventually things would fall apart.
Supporting one another meant survival for everyone. My working life reflects my beliefs about community, cohesion and social justice. I’ve worked as a teacher, educational psychologist, clinical psychologist and magistrate but my deep passion for literature and creative writing has run parallel. My creative writing has been published in the following volumes: Short Circuits – Virago Press, 1996. The Mechanics Institute Review (MIR) Issue 10, 2013. The MIR – Issue 11, 2014. Tangled Roots – Tangled Roots, 2015. The Bridport Prize -Anthology, 2017. Broadwater – Fairlight Books, 2020.
Pauline Walker (photo by Sharron E Wallace)
Pauline Walker’s short stories have been published in the anthologies: Shortest Day Longest Night (Arachne Press) and Time and Tide (Arachne Press). She won the top prize in the 2017 Creative Future Literary Awards with the short story ‘The Wait’ which was published in the winners’ anthology Important Nothings alongside Kit de Waal, Sabrina Mahfouz and Dean Atta. ‘The Wait’ was also published online by Wasafiri. Pauline has been commissioned by The Guardian, Tangle Theatre and StrongBack Productions, and co-hosts the literary podcast, The Amplify Project. She has had a long career in the media, literary and theatre industries working for the Alfred Fagon Award, Artistic Directors of the Future, BBC, Creative Youth, Eclipse Theatre, National Theatre Black Plays Archive, Queen Mary University of London Arts and Culture, Spare Tyre, Staging the Archive, StrongBack Productions, The London Hub of Sustained Theatre, and Wasafiri. Pauline has a BA (Hons) in Literature from the Open University and is an alumna of The Novel Studio – City, University of London.
