2009
MWA judges panel 2009
Hannah Westland grew up in London and studied English Literature at Leeds University. She joined Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd in 2002, working with both Deborah Rogers and David Miller. In 2006 she was...
Best Published Non-Fiction
Laura Longring has worked in publishing for nearly 25 years. As an editor, mostly in the genre of popular fiction, she worked for HarperCollins, Heinemann and Penguin. She became an agent in 1994, working...
Unpublished Short Story
Karen Ings was a commissioning editor at Aurum Press for eight years. Among the books she acquired were two brilliant memoirs about growing up Muslim in Britain: Unimagined by Imran Ahmad; and Shelina Zahra...
Unpublished Short Story
Simon Prosser has worked at Penguin since 1997, and, as Publishing Director of Hamish Hamilton, his list includes Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, Mohsin Hamid, Ali Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kiran Desai, Alain de...
Best Unpublished Novel
Miranda Mckearney OBE is Director of The Reading Agency, the UK wide development agency for libraries' work with readers and played a key role in its formation in July 2002. Miranda is leading an exciting...
Best Published Fiction
Qaisra Shahraz is a critically acclaimed novelist and scriptwriter, Member of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Her novels include, The Holy Woman winner of the Golden...
Best Published Fiction
Zarah Hussain is a regular contributor to the Simon Mayo books review panel on BBC Radio 5 and a cultural commentator for Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Asian Network. Zarah teaches and lectures on art...
Best Published Fiction
Dele Fatunla is the diversity communications officer for Pearson PLC, owners of Penguin, PLC and Pearson Education. He is responsible for internal communications on diversity across Pearson and is involved in...
Best Published Non-Fiction
Dr Claire Chambers is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Leeds Metropolitan University. She is a specialist in South Asian literature written in English and in literary representations of British...
Best Published Non-Fiction
Dr Tahir Abbas is a founding Director of Birmingham University’s Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Culture and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He was previously Senior Research Officer at the...
Best Published Non-Fiction
Fuad Nahdi is the Executive Director of the Radical Middle Way project. He is also the Founding Editor and Publisher of Q-News, a leading current affairs magazine established in 1992. One of the most respected...
Journalism
Ahmed Jafferali Versi is the publisher and editor of The Muslim News and launchd The Muslim News Awards for Excellence. Ahmed also writes for The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, BBC 24 News, Sky, Press...
Journalism
David Hayward set up and is now running the Journalism Programme for the BBC College of Journalism. It's a wide ranging series of events; master classes, seminars, lectures and conferences across the whole BBC...
Journalism
Shannon Park is the Senior Fiction Editor for Puffin. In 2008 she was co-chair of the Children’s Book Circle, a London-based discussion forum for people involved in the children’s publishing...
Unpublished Children’s
Louisa Young has written three novels: Babylove (long-listed for the Orange Prize), Desiring Cairo, Tree of Pearls; a biography: A Great Task of Happiness: the Life of Kathleen Scott; and a cultural history,...
Unpublished Children’s
Asad Ahmed is an award winning BBC television news reader and reporter with BBC London News. Asad won the Royal Television Society Awards in two consecutive years. Asad has also played a significant role in...
Unpublished Children’s
Sufiya Ahmed is the director of BIBI publishing and author of the Zahra series which include 'Zahra's First Term at the Khadija Academy' which was shortlisted in the Muslim Writers Awards 2008 published writer...
Unpublished Children’s
John Newman is a children’s book buyer at the Newham Bookshop and is also the current Chair of the Booksellers Associations Children’s Bookselling Group. He also sits on both the IBBY UK and World...
Unpublished Children’s
Bernardine Evaristo is the author of three novels which fuse fiction with poetry – Lara, The Emperor's Babe and Soul Tourists – and one prose novel, Blonde Roots. She was made a Fellow of the Royal...
Best Unpublished Novel
Robin Yassin-Kassab is the author of The Road from Damascus. He was born in Britain to a Syrian father and English mother and spent his childhood in the north of England and Scotland. He graduated from...
Best Unpublished Novel
Vivian Archer works at The Newham Bookshop, in the diverse and exciting area of East London. The Bookshop hosts many author events and has brought leading writers to the East End.
Best Unpublished Novel
Judith Palmer is well known as a writer and commentator in the press and broadcast media, has written and presented numerous poetry documentaries for BBC Radio 4 which include the regular series, Poetry...
Unpublished Poetry
John Siddique has published four collections of poetry including one for children, he has written a short play for Radio 3's 'Freethinking' Festival, and co-authored a collection of short stories. His...
Unpublished Poetry
Siobhan Logan poems and stories appear in various anthologies and magazines, including A Tale of 3 Cities, Poetry Nottingham, The Journal and Tripod. For some years, she enjoyed teaching girls from a local...
Unpublished Poetry
Mahsuda Shah is a committee member of Leicester Writers’ Club and has been a compulsive writer since she was six. She has recently finished writing her first novel Experiments with Light.
Unpublished Short Story
