New Writing

Two UEA alumnae have been included in the shortlist of three unpublished authors competing for the inaugural £10,000 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers’ Award. The Award was established in honour of the literary agent, who died in 2014, and is intended to support writers from the UK and Ireland in completing their first books. Imogen Hermes Gowar (pictured) graduated from UEA with a BA in Archaeology, Anthropology and Art History in 2012 before joining the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) as the recipient of the Malcolm Bradbury Memorial Bursary. She graduated in 2014 as the winner of the Curtis Brown Prize and was a finalist in the Mslexia First Novel Prize earlier this year. She is shortlisted for her novel, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock. Sharlene Teo is a Singaporean writer based in the UK who joined the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) at UEA as the recipient of the Booker Foundation Scholarship in 2012. After graduation she was the 2013-14 David T.K. Wong Creative Writing Fellow at UEA, and a Fellow of the Sozopol Fiction Seminar in 2014. She is currently in the second year of her PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at UEA, and is shortlisted for the Award for her novel Ponti. Another UEA alumna, Divya Ghelani, was included in the longlist of eight authors selected from the 885 who entered for the Award. Divya graduated from the UEA Creative Writing MA in 2007 and was longlisted for her novel Runaway, which was previously the recipient of a Writing East Midlands Mentorship, a Literary Consultancy Mentorship and an Arts Council Grant. The winner of the Deborah Rogers Award will be announced at a ceremony in London on 5th May, with McEwan presenting the award.