Two UEA alumni have been shortlisted for the Manchester Fiction Prize. April Yee (pictured), who graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2022 as a Malcolm Bradbury Memorial Scholar, is nominated for her story ‘Still Blue Thing’; and Edward Hogan, who graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2004, is nominated for his story ‘Home Work’. April is a National Book Critics Circle Fellow, a Ledbury Poetry Critic, and a Refugee Journalism Project mentor. In 2021, she was editor-in-residence at The Georgia Review, the Community of Writers’ Lucille Clifton Memorial Scholar, and listed for the Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize, the Alpine Fellowship, the Women’s Prize Trust’s Discoveries, and the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. She previously won the 2022 Ivan Juritz Prize and was shortlisted for the international Manchester Poetry Prize that same year. Edward’s first novel, Blackmoor, was published in 2008 and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize. It won the Desmond Elliot Prize. The Hunger Trace (2011) was shortlisted for both the Encore Award and the Portico Prize. Daylight Saving, his debut children’s novel, was shortlisted for the 2013 Branford Boase Award and the Leeds Book Awards. In 2021 he was longlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and was shortlisted in the Galleybegger Prize and the Manchester Fiction Prize. The winner of this year’s Manchester Fiction Prize will receive £10,000 and will be announced at an awards ceremony on December 8, hosted at Manchester Met’s Grosvenor East building.