2023 Fiction Prize shortlist
Amy Abdelnoor - The Sabaar Plant
Amy Abdelnoor writes in the slivers of time between teaching English and looking after three happy, energetic and busy children. Now living in a village in Essex, Amy studied English and Arabic at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. In her thirties Amy, her husband and their (then young) children moved to a remote Tuscan hillside. This was a capricious, but tamer, adventure than returning, in her twenties, to her Arab roots when she lived and worked in Ramallah and in refugee camps in Lebanon. These combined experiences inspired 'The Sabaar Plant'. Amy takes any opportunity to natter away in English, French, Italian or Arabic and to read - usually books that make her cry. In the spare time that she doesn't have Amy likes to bake and eat cakes and go for long walks. Amy is on Twitter at @amyabdelnoor.
Helen Bain - Court Green
Helen Bain was on the London Library Emerging Writers Programme 2020/2021 and the Genesis Foundation Emerging Writers Programme 2022/2023. She has MA degrees in Modern & Contemporary Literature and Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London, and is currently in the final year of a creative/critical PhD at King’s College London, where she also teaches creative writing. She was shortlisted for The Biographers’ Club Tony Lothian Prize 2021 and longlisted for The Reader Berlin Writing Prize 2022. Her debut novel, Court Green, is a revisiting of Sylvia Plath’s life in North Devon from 1961 to 1962. Helen works at the Financial Times. In her spare time she teaches literature to young people with special educational needs; she also likes to seek out lidos, tidal pools, rivers and occasionally ponds around the UK.
Smita Bhide - Ramraj
Smita Bhide writes for television on a variety of shows in the UK and for international streamers. She is currently working on BBC One’s new flagship drama Ten Pound Poms and is the writer-director of award-winning indie feature film The Blue Tower. Prior to this, she worked at acclaimed women’s rights organisation Southall Black Sisters and in women’s refuges. She lives in west London.
Sarah Harman - The Dirtbag Detective - Winner
Sarah Harman is a recovering journalist based in London. As a broadcaster, she has over a decade of experience reporting on major breaking news stories around the globe, most recently as a foreign correspondent for NBC News, reporting for Today, Nightly News and MSNBC. Prior to that, Sarah anchored a rolling news broadcast for Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin. Dirtbag Detective is her first attempt at a novel and frankly, it’s taken a lot longer than she expected. You can find Sarah on Instagram: @sarahharmantv
Sarah Harman's debut novel will be published in Spring 2025 by 4th Estate Books in the UK after a nine-way British auction, and by Putnam in the US as All The Other Mothers Hate Me, it has been sold into other eleven territories, and is being adapted for tv by FX.
Anna Knowland - Water Soldier
By the age of 21, Anna Knowland had moved house 22 times within a 5-mile radius area of rural Somerset. She escaped to study Art History at UEA and the Courtauld Institute, London. She has worked in design and contemporary art, and spent several years recruiting FTSE 100 executives in the City of London. She recently took an MA in Contemporary Literature, where she rekindled a longstanding love for writing fiction. Anna has a deep interest in rural folklore and traditions, partly inspired by her father, a gunsmith. She lives in Sussex with her husband, an architect, and two sons.
Carrie Loman - Fallen Picture
Carrie Loman now writes full-time following an international career in the travel industry, developing high-end safaris for award-winning eco-tourism companies in East Africa and latterly marketing in fitness and leisure. This took her from sleeping under canvas beneath the stars of the Serengeti to practicing her swing with Golf Pros at a country club. Carrie lives in Herts, where she used to edit a local environmental magazine, writing about the community, and also enjoys composing music, adding lime juice to curries and organising family get-togethers with her grown-up girls. Carrie is on Twitter as @carrieonwriting