Winners of the Northern Writers Awards 2022
NWA winners 2022
A huge congratulations to Hala Mukhair, Nefeli Frida and Isabelle Pollard who were all awarded Northern Writers Awards this year in 2022!
Hala Mukhair, a grad of Hive’s Mixing Roots programme, was highly commended in the 15-18 Young Northern Writer Award. Judge, author Liz Flanagan, said of Hala’s work: “United in voice and tone, political and passionate; memorable phrasing like ‘walking bombs of trauma’ or ‘chattering winter of doubt’ – very effective and accomplished, with a powerful punch. The work is confident and vivid: despair enacted in writing, but with moments of light and hope such as the beautiful line ‘silver when I held it to the light’. Let’s Make a World has a particularly great ending, but all these poems show great skill, with vivid imagery and an impressive ability to link mundane detail to the political.”
Receiving the Matthew Hale Award (for young writers 11-18) was Nefeli Frida of Rotherham Young Writers, who was awarded a package of support to help her further her writing. And Isabelle Pollard, also from Rotherham Young Writers, was highly commended in the award.
More about the Northern Writers Award
Established in 2000 by New Writing North, the Northern Writers’ Awards supports work-in-progress by new, emerging and established writers across the North of England. The Awards support writers creatively as they develop their work towards publication, as well as helping them to progress professionally and navigate their way through the publishing industry.
The awards support both new and established writers to develop their work towards publication and to progress their careers as writers. For new writers, winning a Northern Writers’ Award can help to connect you to the publishing industry and to develop your work towards publication; for established writers, awards can help to buy time to write to support the development of new work and offer creative opportunities. With high-profile literary judges and support and interest from across the publishing industry, the awards are now recognised nationally as a major talent-spotting programme that identifies and supports great writing and writers. Browse our previous winners to see the published work that the awards have supported.
The Northern Writers’ Awards are produced by New Writing North, the reading and writing development agency based in Newcastle upon Tyne. We work on projects across the North of England that support and promote writers of all ages and at all stages of their careers. All of our current opportunities and an overview of our regular project work is detailed on our website at www.newwritingnorth.com. We publish monthly newsletters for writers, which you can subscribe to at our website below.