UEA alumna Mona Arshi has been announced as the winner of the 2015 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection for her debut poetry collection Small Hands, which was published by Liverpool University Press earlier this year. The award is organized by the Forward Prize and is worth £5,000. Mona (pictured) trained as a lawyer and worked for the human rights organization Liberty for several years before joining UEA. She graduated from the Creative Writing (Poetry) MA in 2011, and was the winner of the Magma Poetry Competition in 2012, when she was also one of ten poets selected for ‘The Complete Works’, an Arts Council development programme. In 2014 her poem ‘Bad Day In The Office’ was placed second in the Troubadour International Poetry Prize. She was also shortlisted for the Poetry School Pighog Poetry Pamphlet Competition, and was the joint-winner of the £10,000 Manchester Creative Writing Competition poetry prize.
Mona Arshi wins Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection
