The longlist for the first HWA/Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award has been announced, with 12 “fresh and vital” manuscripts making it through to the next round of judging. Congratulations to all the authors!
They are:
Richard Bryson for Five Dark Moons
Maggie Humm: Talland House
Paula Lennon: The Adventures of Isaiah Ollenu Esquire
Tim Oliver: Across The Line
Anna Pietrzkiewicz: Behold the Man
Baptiste Pinson: Sword Maidens
Felicity J Reid: Guinevere
HJ Reynolds: Hushed Peacocks
Maggie Richell Davies: The Servant
Mandy Rymill: Uxorious
Peter Sandham: Porphyry and Ash
Susan Stokes-Chapman: Infelice
Imogen Robertson, chair of the Historical Writers’ Association, says:
“We were delighted at the number of excellent manuscripts we received, though the high quality of the entries made the selection of a longlist extremely challenging!
“If the longlist were to include every manuscript we read which is both publishable and deserving of a wide readership, it would be twice as long.
“The manuscripts which reached the longlist were the ones which are not just brilliantly written, but are brilliantly structured too. They also have in their subject matter, style, or setting something fresh and vital about them.”
Find out more about the longlisted novels at the HWA website.
The final results will be announced in the second week of March, 2020.
And if you’d like to know more about what the judges were looking for, see Historia’s interview with Richard Foreman, the founder of Sharpe Books.
