Naomi Alderman wins 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction

7 June 2017 The Power by Naomi Alderman has been named as the winner of the £30,000 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction at an awards ceremony at Royal Festival Hall this evening. The Power, a feminist science fiction novel, follows four characters navigating a changed world in which all women have developed the power to…

Helen Dunmore

7 June 2017 We were deeply saddened to hear of the death, earlier this week, of writer, poet and children’s author Helen Dunmore. Helen joined the Society in 1993. She won a McKitterick prize in 2004 for Zennor in Darkness. Helen always showed a great interest in and support for our causes. She went on…

How do the major parties’ manifesto pledges weigh up against SoA campaign asks?

6 June 2017 With the election just days away we measured the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat manifesto pledges against our campaign asks. At the beginning of May, we published More than Just Words, a set of pre-election asks calling on the next Government to “support Britain’s cultural heart: with funding and legislation, with transparency…

‘Rich and varied’ 2017 Betty Trask Prize shortlist announced

16 May 2016 The Society of Authors has announced the 2017 shortlist for the Betty Trask Prize and Awards. This year’s shortlist of six debut literary novels by authors under the age of 35 includes a self-published novel for the first time. The winner, to be announced at the SoA Authors’ Awards on 20 June,…

Judges Announced for The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award 2017

The award-winning novelist and political commentator Elif Shafak and the acclaimed cultural historian and biographer Lucy Hughes-Hallett will join Andrew Holgate on the judging panel of The Sunday Times / Peter Frasers + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. Now run in association with the University of Warwick, the prize rewards the best work…

Speak Out – SoA joins campaign

The Society of Authors joins Index on Censorship, the Peter Tatchell Foundation, the Publishers Association and Reporters Sans Frontières in sponsoring the next English PEN-organised vigil, calling on the Saudi Arabian government for the immediate release of writer, blogger and activist Raif Badawi, and to mark the fifth anniversary of his arrest. Badawi was arrested…

SoA calls on next Government to offer ‘More than Just Words’ to support authors

2 May 2017 We call on the next Government to support Britain’s cultural heart: with funding and legislation, with transparency and ambition – always with more than just words. Photograph: Ben Terrett / Flickr As Britain gears up to go to the polls on 8th June, we have published More than Just Words, a set…

Bret Anthony Johnston wins the 2017 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award

Bret Anthony Johnston has been announced as the winner of the award at the prize dinner at Stationers’ Hall today, Thursday 27 April. Johnston receives the award for his story, entitled Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows About Horses. The story follows Atlee Rouse’s life-long passion for horses, and the way in which he recalls…