Your Futures favourites

To celebrate 100 years of Good Housekeeping, we teamed up to launch the Women’s Prize x Good Housekeeping Futures Award. A panel of inspiring judges were tasked with finding the most promising female authors under the age of 35 and we announced the 10 finalists earlier this year.

Read on to find out more about each of the shortlisted authors and your winner Stacey Halls!

Meet the 10 Futures Finalists

We spoke to each Futures finalist in turn to find out more about their books, their motivations and where they see themselves in ten years time.

Jessica Andrews, author of Saltwater.

‘I believe that writing novels is about connecting with the world outside of them and I hope my work contributes to conversations around class, the body, agency and gender and that the circumstances my characters find themselves in say something about the societal structures we all navigate.’

Find out more about Jessica here.

Natasha Brown, author of Assembly.

‘I’m deeply interested in the question of whether language can be neutral, and in the ways that narratives can be used — to illuminate, reveal, erase, silence, or even distort. In more concrete terms, I hoped to write a novel that examined the conventions of the “young black woman” fiction genre.’ 

Find out more about Natasha here.

Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie.

‘I hope that I can carry on reaching readers who can find themselves in any of the characters I write. The characters I’ve written and continue to write are complex, they’re far from perfect, but they try their best. And I think that that is all we can do.’

Find out more about Candice here.

Eliza Clark, author of Boy Parts

‘Because I was helped so much by New Writing North, I’d really like to be able to pay that forward; I’d love to do some mentoring myself, and to be able to create a pot of money to fund one-to-one mentoring for young writers from marginalised backgrounds.’

Find out more about Eliza here.

Abigail Dean, author of Girl A

‘I love reading, and I hope that my books can inspire some of the feelings I’ve experienced reading other writers’ books. It’s a love that’s almost painful, at times: as if you want to clamber inside the stories, and live in them. In my time, I’ve loved and loathed so many characters, and the idea that someone could feel that way about a character I’ve created is one of the best things in the world. ‘

Find out more about Abigail here.

Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times

‘I never remember how I originally got any of my ideas. I don’t find the having of a thought to be an astonishing event. What’s rarer is a thought I want to pursue for long enough to get a book out of it, but that’s not a decision I make in a single moment – it’s a really gradual feeling out.’

Find out more about Naoise here.

Stacey Halls, author of Mrs England

‘I hope to continue to tell stories about women in the past that bring them into the present. For too long women have existed in the margins of history, and I feel it’s my duty to bring them out and onto the page.’

Find out more about Stacey here.

Sairish Hussain, author of The Family Tree

‘I’d love to be in a position where I can still tell stories! Where my voice still matters. I’m so passionate about representation and believe in opening doors for writers from marginalised backgrounds. If I could mentor others and inspire them to write the stories that they choose to tell, then that would be an absolute privilege.’

Find out more about Sairish here.

Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters

‘I want my books to stay with readers long after they have put them down, I want them to be written as well as I can possibly write them and to challenge me as a writer. I want them to move beyond plot and structurally and linguistically mirror the themes they explore, I want to push and cajole and knead language.’

Find out more about Daisy here.

Chibundu Onuzo, author of Sankofa

‘I’m working on a trilogy of children’s books, so I want to have completed that. And I want to have completed a fourth novel for adults. And written for film and television. Either adapting my own novels or working on an original idea. I also want to have released an album. I want to do a lot basically.’

Find out more about Chibundu here.