With thanks, the judges of the 2025 ADCI Literary Prize:

Dr. Pragya Agarwal

Dr. Pragya Agarwal is a British/Indian writer and scholar. She is currently a visiting professor of social inequities and injustice at Loughborough University, RLF Fellow at University of Cambridge, and a visiting scholar at University of Oxford. Agarwal is the author of four widely acclaimed non-fiction books including Sway, (M)otherhood, and Hysterical, and has also written widely for The Guardian, New Scientist, Scientific American, Times Literary Supplement, Literary Hub, amongst others. She has been awarded the Transmission Prize for ‘making complex scientific ideas accessible’ and Crucible NESTA award for ‘innovative inter-disciplinary work’, and funding from Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, British Academy, Society of Authors, and Royal Society of Literature for her research and writing. In 2024 she has also been awarded fellowships from the British Library, Bodliean Library, Maynooth University, Fulbright UK-USA, and UNESCO. Agarwal was born in India and now lives between UK and Ireland.

Penny Batchelor

Penny Batchelor is an alumni of Faber Academy’s six month ‘Writing a Novel’ course and the author of two psychological thrillers, My Perfect Sister and Her New Best Friend, both published by RedDoor Press. My Perfect Sister was longlisted for The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize 2020, and Her New Best Friend was described by LoveReading as ‘a white-knuckle tense thriller’. Her short story ‘The Debate’ is in an anthology called UnLocked, published in November 2023 to raise money for The Trussell Trust by a group of authors who all debuted in 2020. She is the co-founder and editor of the Thriller Women blog with fellow author EC Scullion and she and author Victoria Scott successfully campaigned for Amazon to introduce a disability fiction character for adults in their books section.

James Catchpole

James Catchpole is a literary agent and author of children’s books. The Catchpole Agency represents writers and illustrators including Polly Dunbar, SF Said, Michelle Robinson, Sean Taylor and Eoin McLaughlin. Together with his wife, Lucy, James has written a series of picture books to provide children and their grown-ups with authentic disability representation, starting with What Happened to You?, which has established itself in schools and libraries here and in the US.

Rachel Charlton-Dailey

Rachel Charlton-Dailey (she/ they) is an award-winning disabled journalist, activist and author. A columnist at The Canary, she has previously reported for the BBC, The Unwritten, The Big Issue, Metro, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror.  She is the author of Ruby Hastings Writes Her Own Story (Collins 2o24) and Ramping Up Rights: An Unfinished History of Disability Activism (Hurst, July 2025). When Rachel isn’t writing, they can be found walking their sausage dog, Rusty.

Linda Corbett

Linda Corbett writes feel-good contemporary romance and is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. She was the recipient of the Katie Fforde Bursary in 2020, and her debut novel, Love You From A-Z, was a contender for the RNA’s Joan Hessayon Award. Her second novel, What Would Jane Austen Do? was published in June 2023. Linda lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and three permanently hungry guinea pigs, and when she’s not writing she can usually be found reading, crafting or pottering in the garden. For many years Linda wrote a regular column for a disability magazine, illustrating the humorous aspects of life with a complex disability. She is also a member of Shine – the charity that supports individuals and families living with spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus. Linda can be found on Instagram as @lindacorbettauthor and on X as @lcorbettauthor.

Selina Mills

Selina Mills is an award-winning writer and broadcaster who is legally blind. Educated in the USA and the UK, Selina has worked as a senior reporter and broadcaster for Reuters, The Daily Telegraph, and the BBC. She has regularly writes for publications including The Observer and The Spectator. She is focused on fiction and no fiction disability advocacy and how it shapes our world. Selina was a contributor to the ground-breaking BBC/Loftus series Disability: A New History (2013) which has been rebroadcast around the world, and a regular commentator to BBC Radio 4’s “In Touch” programme. Selina also created the original idea and co-wrote the libretto (with Nicola Werenowska) The Paradis Files, a chamber opera by composer Errollyn Wallen, which premiered at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank in April 2022, and then on tour around the U.K. The opera follows the real life story of Maria-Theresia Von Paradis (1759-1824) the talented musician and blind composer, known as “the Blind enchantress.” Bloomsbury published Selina’s memoir and History book Life Unseen: A Story of Blindness in 2023.

Okechukwu Nzelu

Okechukwu Nzelu is a writer based in Manchester. His debut novel, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney (Dialogue Books, 2019), won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for a number of other prizes. His second novel, Here Again Now (Dialogue Books, 2022) was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award, among others. He has made several appearances on national radio, he is a non-executive director of ALCS and CLA, and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. In 2024 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.