Announcing the Discoveries Prize longlist 2026
BY Discoveries
30th Apr 2026
Curtis Brown Creative are proud to partner with the Women’s Prize Trust, the Curtis Brown literary agency and Audible to run Discoveries for a sixth year. This is a unique novel-writing development prize and programme for women writers in the UK and Ireland, who have not been traditionally published in long form.
We’re delighted to share this year’s Discoveries longlist of 16 unpublished novels-in-progress chosen from over 3,000 entries. The reading panel and judges were swept away by the high standard of the work submitted and would like to thank all the brilliant writers who shared their novels-in-progress. Even if you didn’t make the 2026 longlist, we’d like to encourage you to keep writing! For the past two years, 20% of the longlist has been made up of writers who entered Discoveries in previous years – which speaks to the heart of our aims for this programme and prize – to uplift and encourage women writers to persevere and follow their writing dreams.
The longlisted titles were chosen by Chair of Judges Kate Mosse CBE, international bestselling novelist and Founder Director of the Women’s Prize, and her judging panel: acclaimed authors Dorothy Koomson and Nussaibah Younis, Curtis Brown literary agent Ciara Finan and Curtis Brown Creative’s founder Anna Davis.
Kate Mosse, Chair of Judges, said: ‘The sixth year of Discoveries shows what we have always known; namely, that inspiration, creativity and imagination can be found everywhere. It has been a pleasure to read so many extraordinary, original and excellent pieces of work-in-progress and it was incredibly hard to whittle down to our sixteen writers. Each of them has a unique voice and it is wonderful to see that women of all ages, from all backgrounds, are writing with ambition and courage in every genre of fiction. My heartfelt thanks to my fellow judges and to Curtis Brown, Curtis Brown Creative, and Audible for their support of this groundbreaking programme.’
This year’s longlist showcases talented women writing across a range of genres – from vividly imagined fantasy and tender romance to visceral horror and immersive historical fiction. Without further ado, we’re pleased to introduce the 16 writers longlisted for Discoveries 2026.
Mirha Butt, Notes From The Valley Of Unclaimed Daughters
Mirha Butt is a London-based public policy and research professional and a recent graduate of the LSE, raised in Watford. She is also an identical twin and the proud owner of a cat called Bibble! Her work centres the complexities of female relationships, whether in friendship, motherhood, sisterhood, or elsewhere.
Her novel-in-progress, Notes From The Valley Of Unclaimed Daughters, is set in Kashmir during the 1990’s insurgency and its aftermath. The novel was inspired in part by her grandfather, who was born in Azad Kashmir, and by his commitment to human rights and freedom from occupation.
- 'Surreal, thrilling, and slightly like I’ve accidentally been let into a room I was only ever meant to peek into from the corridor. I’ve been writing since childhood and doubting myself almost as long, so to know there is value in what I’m writing means more than I can say. I’m especially excited to meet the other longlistees!'
Jo Carroll, This is What Happens When You Wear Purple
A lifetime ago (that’s how it feels) Jo worked in Child Protection: supporting troubled children and writing countless official documents, court reports, research papers, and a thesis. 30 years was long enough. She gave up work, abandoned her (adult) children, and set off round the world on her own.
She came home with more stories than people to listen. Write them, friends said. And so Over the Hill and Far Away was self-published in 2011. Jo never lost her love of travel – nor of writing. And so, she continued to play with words: short stories, a novel, as well as more travel writing.
The pandemic changed everything. After four difficult years she embarked on a Creative Writing MA with the Open University. Her sole aim, at the start, was to reconnect with her love of writing. Travels on the page, if you like. In the process of those studies, she discovered Maggie, and decided she needed a novel.
- ‘I am astonished – and humbled to think that my efforts have made it to the longlist. What an opportunity!'
Mary E Clapp, A Blush of Red
Mary is an actor-turned-writer, having previously written for stage and screen. She has performed her own work on stage, and was a participant on the Hampstead Theatre INSPIRE playwriting scheme. She also wrote and acted in the short film ‘toni_with_an_i’ (BBC, BFI), nominated for TV BAFTA in 2020. Mary studied English Literature at Oxford University and now lives, works and writes in Oxford. She has a small Substack where she sometimes shares her past experiences as an actor. She recently completed the Advanced Historical Fiction course with Curtis Brown Creative, and A Blush of Red is her first novel.
- ‘Unreal! Literally! It's an astonishing vote of confidence, which is hard to come by as a writer. I am extremely grateful.’
Rebecca Cook, Dishonour
Rebecca is a TV journalist living in London. She studied her undergraduate degree in English Literature at Oxford University before getting her journalism accreditation during the dark days of Covid lockdowns.As a teenager, she won the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature short story competition. The prize was publication in an anthology and a ludicrously expensive fountain pen, which remained untouched for years, for fear of damaging it. She recently discovered it has started to rust in its box.Since then, Rebecca has continued to write short fiction until inspiration struck for the Big Novel Idea. It arrived last year, while talking to a friend about the wedding industrial complex. Her evenings are spent writing that, while by day she turns her hand to The Traitors or Bridgerton or some such drama.
- 'I’m absolutely thrilled. As soon as I read the email, I had to screenshot it for proof, in case I had somehow imagined it! Self-doubt when writing can be so pervasive that I nearly abandoned this application, because I thought it was a pipedream. But having this endorsement for some of what I’ve written so far has lit a fire underneath me to keep on at it. Plus, I’ll forever have that happy email as a reminder to battle the niggling thoughts when they do creep up.'
Uduak-Abasi Ekong, Welcome Back, Darling
Uduak-Abasi Ekong is a Manchester-based Nigerian writer. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Afreada, The Bournemouth Journal, Ojuju Magazine, Wensum Literary, Everscribe Magazine, Brittle Paper, and Ekondo Review. She was runner-up for the inaugural Hilary Mantel Prize for Fiction and a winner of the 2025 Book Edit New Writers’ Prize. Her work has also been shortlisted or longlisted for the Bath Novel Awards, Exeter Novel Prize, Merky New Writers’ Prize, and Creative Future Writers’ Award. She is a 2026 SmokeLong Emerging Writer Fellow and a Faber Academy alumna.
- ‘I’m still in shock. This novel has lived with me for years so it means a great deal to see it recognised in this way. I'm grateful for the encouragement and excited about the work ahead. To anyone thinking about entering next year but feeling unsure, I was once in that position too, and you could be here as well.'
Aisling Flynn, Vital Organs
Aisling Flynn’s short fiction has been published by The Dublin Review, Banshee, Harper's Bazaar, among others, and broadcast by RTÉ. She was awarded Literature Bursaries by the Arts Council of Ireland for work on her writing in 2024 and 2025. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award for her short story collection, Fox Teeth. She is a previous winner of Greywood Arts Winter Writing Residency Award and was shortlisted for the Francis McManus Short Story Prize. When not writing fiction, she is working on developing her first full-length play, The Bad One, with her friends at Lost Train Theatre Company. She works in Dublin as a bookseller.
- ‘It feels like the kick that I needed to keep going. It came be hard to come across big pushes of encouragement such as this.'
Cleo Heywood, Magpie State
Cleo is a writer living in London, raised between the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
She studied Writing for Performance at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, graduating in 2024. She is currently reading for an MSt in Creative Writing at the University of Oxford.
Cleo’s short story ‘Dancer, All Legs Up’ won First Prize in the Bath Short Story Award 2025. She was shortlisted for the Alpine Theatre Fellowship in 2025, and her writing has appeared in exhibition for TEXTUS, in The Weasel Magazine and Oxford’s The Isis. Her stage plays have been performed at venues including the Science Museum and the University of Sussex.
Her novel-in-progress Magpie State is a literary fiction about a young woman's survival, obligation and desire in a desolate hinterland.
- ‘I couldn't believe it when the email came in – I had to re-read it multiple times to check I wasn’t imagining it. It is so incredibly thrilling and encouraging to be longlisted for Discoveries 2026. This is my first time writing long-form fiction, and so it's a total surprise! It's really given me the momentum to write on.’
Jaya Kaur, Growing Pains
Jayaa is a student from the North of England and currently completing her undergraduate degree in Law. She has been reading and writing devotedly since childhood and if not doing these things, she’s probably at a concert. Her novel-in-progress, Growing Pains, follows the relationship between two young adults as they navigate a tumultuous transition from adolescence into adulthood.
- ‘Being longlisted was a complete surprise. I feel excited and very grateful! It was a wonderful email to receive, and extremely encouraging to know that the readers and judges enjoyed a part of my story.'
S.J. Ladds, Butch
S.J. Ladds is a library assistant on the outskirts of Glasgow who dreams of one day seeing her own books on the shelves. She recently graduated an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction and has pieces of short fiction published in ejournals like AC|DC Lit, The Eunoia Review, Impspired and The Future Fire. She was longlisted for the Cymera 2025 Prize for speculative short fiction and had her first novelette published in January of 2026.
- ‘Incredible… And slightly surreal. I'm still not entirely sure it's real. I woke up on my day off to an email notification and thought it was a shipping update on a parcel, so you can imagine my surprise when it was actually an email about the Discoveries Prize. And then I assumed it would be a very polite commiseration: thank you for submitting, unfortunately… But here we are! I'm a little bit shellshocked I think, but so unbelievably grateful.'
Marija Maher-Diffenthal, Undone
Marija Maher-Diffenthal is a Serbian-born writer who grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in St Albans with her three children and a cockapoo. She taught English and Drama in London for 10 years and this fueled her ambition to become a writer. After attending the Faber Academy in 2019 she started writing a YA trilogy but when her husband died in 2021 her experience of dealing with grief gave birth to a new story about what we’d sacrifice to see our loved ones again. Her longlisted novel-in-progress, Undone, is a work of fiction, though sometimes she wishes it wasn’t.
- ‘I am beyond thrilled to be longlisted for Discoveries 2026. I had to read the email several times to convince myself I wasn’t imagining it. It feels incredibly validating to have such esteemed judges read your work and find merit in it. As an unpublished writer, you never really know if your writing is actually any good or if you’re just delusional so this is much needed reassurance for me and a huge confidence boost.'
Liz K.Linh Nguyễn, Phụng
Liz K. Linh Nguyễn grew up in Hà Nội, Việt Nam. At 14, Liz moved to Lancashire to attend boarding school. She currently lives in London with her husband, cat and two rescue dogs. She works in Management Consulting – but has always dreamed of writing a novel. Liz’s novel, Phụng, is inspired by the places that shaped her. Phụng is a dual coming-of-age story across two Vietnamese post-war generations – of a son who loses his mother, and of the mother before she has a son.
- ‘Surreal. I opened the email and expected it to be a gentle rejection. I had to read the email twice to realise that I have in fact been longlisted. It is an incredible confidence boost.'
Melissa Oliver-Powell, Sea-Mouth
Melissa is a lecturer in film studies and literature at the University of York, where it’s her job to introduce unsuspecting English lit students to weird and wonderful bits of world cinema. As a researcher, she has published an academic book, Pepsi and the Pill, and several articles and chapters on gender and sexuality in film. After years of thinking about feminist and queer studies in her day job (and beyond it), she is now exploring these ideas and passions in more untamed forms through fiction.
- ‘I still have a sneaking suspicion it’s all been an incredible fever dream. I got the email in the middle of a busy train station, and I’m not sure how I managed to stop myself screaming loud enough to cause a security incident. There are so many phenomenal women on the judging panel and knowing that they’ve read my work and made a connection with it is just the most humbling thing.'
Jo O'Neill, The Peat Cutter's Wife
After a hectic career living and working in South Africa, Norway, the Netherlands and Scotland, Jo hung up her construction helmet in 2023 and returned to England to fulfil a lifelong dream and write full time. Now Jo lives in the South of England and is an active member of her local writers’ group - Reading Writers - who she describes as the most supportive, talented group she could ever hope to meet. She lives with her husband, John, a professional artist.
- ‘I made a strange sound somewhere between a yelp and a squeal, which startled my poor dog from her nap. I feel thrilled, thankful, inspired, and at a loss for any more adjectives. Honestly, I didn't expect to be picked. I submitted my entry and did my best to forget about it. When I got the email I had to read it twice. And the next day I read it again because I was so certain I must have misremembered it. Thank you so much, Discoveries.’
Sithara Ranasinghe, The Spare
Sithara Ranasinghe was born in Sri Lanka and raised in Loughborough. Her writing has been featured in Teen Vogue,Cake Zine, Design Observer and Eaten. She posts niche historical deep dives on her Substack, Sithara’s Newslettara, and co-hosts the podcast Further Reading.
Her novel-in-progress, The Spare, aims to poke fun at fantasy tropes with as much love as possible.
The 'wait, are we the bad guys?' colonial themes in this novel are informed by her experience as a British Sri Lankan.
- ‘I'm still in disbelief, so much so that when I first got the email, I didn't open it because I assumed it was a rejection. (I'm very relieved Gmail bumped it with the "Received 2 days ago. Reply?" prompt!) Then, of course, I screamed and did a little jig and kicked my heels in the air like a chimney sweep in a musical. And then I told my family, who did the same.'
Halina Watts, Meat
Halina Watts is a freelance showbusiness journalist and mum, who currently lives in London. Her novel-in-progress Meat explores issues of human consumption, the way we devour then discard humans for personal enjoyment, and how to truly be in a body.
She is a graduate of UEA's MA in Prose Fiction where she started writing Meat. She has been mentored by Leone Ross and James Young of the Hasting Writers Workshop and was awarded a scholarship to study with Jessica Andrews on her Writing The Body course at Faber Academy.
Her short story 'Claude' was published in Nearshore Magazine. Another short story 'Cake Baby' won second place in a London Writer's Salon Competition. It was also a finalist in a Women on Writing Competition.
- ‘It feels incredibly surreal – my initial response to the email was: Is this fake? Now as the shock settles, I feel delighted and incredibly grateful that this group of judges believe in my work. It has given me the incentive I really needed at this time to keep writing.’
Ruixi Zhang, Confessions of an Alien
Ruixi Zhang is an exophonic writer based in London. Born and raised in China, she studied English and psychology at Wellesley College, a women’s university in the US, before coming to the UK for an MA in comparative literature at the University of Oxford. Her debut short story appeared in Colorado Review. Her novel-in-progress was longlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2025. An alumna of the HarperCollins Author Academy, she has been awarded the Curtis Brown Creative Breakthrough Scholarship and the Faber Academy Scholarship.
She is currently working on her debut novel, Confessions of an Alien, a literary thriller that explores the power dynamics in interracial marriage.
- 'The news found me at a difficult time of my life. I had once again slipped into the bottomless pit of self-doubts while editing my manuscript. Then, there came a helicopter that lifted me out of this pit in an instant and showed me the sky. There was also a first-aid kit in this helicopter, which I could use if I fall into that pit again in the future. All this is to say, thank you, it means everything to me.'
Congratulations to these fantastic writers! All 16 longlisted authors have been invited to attend a bespoke online Discoveries Writing Development course running over two weeks this summer, designed and hosted by Curtis Brown Creative with expert tuition from bestselling author Laura Barnett and a pitching session with agents from Curtis Brown. The longlisted writers have also been awarded a one-year Audible subscription.
The Discoveries 2026 shortlist of six writers will be announced on Thursday 14 May. The winner announcement will follow on Thursday 28 May.
All six shortlisted writers will be offered a mentoring session with a Curtis Brown agent plus free enrolment on a Curtis Brown Creative six-week online course (worth £230).
One promising writer from the shortlist of six will be named the Discoveries Scholar. This writer will win a free scholarship to attend a three-month Writing Your Novel course with Curtis Brown Creative (worth £1,900).
The winner will be offered representation by Curtis Brown Literary Agency and a cash prize of £5,000.