Announcing The Rathbones Folio Prize 2021 Judges
The T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet Roger Robinson, the Irish writer, editor and broadcaster Sinéad Gleeson and novelist and short story writer Jon McGregor have been announced as judges for the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize.
Roger Robinson, chair won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2019 and RSL Ondaatje Prize in 2020 and is cur- rently on the shortlist for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. He has performed all over the world and was chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the Black-British writing can- on. His latest collection‘A Portable Paradise’ was a ‘New Statesman’ Book of the Year. As well as leading workshops and touring extensively with the British Council he is lead vocalist and lyricist for King Midas Sound and has recorded solo albums.
Sinead Gleeson was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2020 with Constellations: Reflections from Life which won the Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and the 2020 Dalkey Literary Award. Her short stories have appeared in a number of collections and she is the editor of four anthologies of short stories, most recently published The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories. She is now working on a novel.
Jon McGregor is the author of four novels and a story collection. He has been longlisted for the Booker prize three times and his books have won a Betty Trask Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award and the International Dublin Literary Award. He was named 2002 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year in 2002 and in 2010, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Nottingham. His new book, Lean Fall Stand, will be published in 2021.
The 2021 shortlist will be announced in February, and the prize ceremony and events — in a physical/digital hybrid form — will take place in March.
Announcing The Rathbones Folio Prize 2021 Mentors
Raymond Antrobus, Vahni Capildeo, Paul Farley and Rachel Long confirmed as mentors for the 2021 Rathbones Folio Mentorship programme.
Raymond Antrobus, winner of the 2019 Rathbones Folio Prize and the Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year among other prizes, for his debut collection The Perseverance.
Vahni Capildeo, winner of the 2016 Forward Prize for Best Collection for Measures of Expatriation, which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize the same year.
The multi award-winning poet and non-fiction writer Paul Farley, who chaired the judges of this year’s Rathbones Folio Prize.
Leader of the Octavia Poetry Collective for Women of Colour, Rachel Long, author of the widely acclaimed My Darling from the Lions, shortlisted for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best First Collection.
The scheme pairs four outstanding students from disadvantaged backgrounds with four mentors, who are members of The Folio Academy, for one-to-one creative writing tutoring over the course of a year.
Read the full press release here.
Rathbones Folio Prize Sessions 2020:
How to Write a Book in your Lunch Hour
In the ‘How to Write a book in a Day’ Sessions, hear how some masters of their trade manage to translate what’s in their heads and hearts to the page. Hosted by Kate Clanchy, celebrated teacher, prize winning poet and author of the recent bestseller “Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me’ and the forthcoming ‘How to Grow a Poem’ these 3 sessions will focus on poetry, fiction and non-fiction with one on one interviews with Raymond Antrobus, Kate Summerscale and Patrick Gale, followed by a Q&A with the audience. If you missed the Rathbones Folio Prize Sessions 2020, you can now watch them below.
National Writing Day 2020
To celebrate #NationalWritingDay, we’re delighted to share creative writing extracts from two of this year’s Rathbones Folio Mentees! Read Nidaa Raoof’s astonishing ‘postcard stories’ and poetry, and Mariamah Davey’s breathtaking short fiction.
Also shared below is creative writing extracts from previous years, from the Mentorship programme alumnae Aisha Borja, Henna Ravjibhai, Adnaan Ali, Sophie Crabtree, Shakira Irfan, Imaru Lewis, and Vincent Otterbeck.
A Bright Future for the Rathbones Folio Prize
We’re delighted to announce an expanded partnership with our sponsors Rathbones Investment Management, which secures the future of the Prize, Mentorships and Sessions until at least 2023. The renewed and significantly increased sponsorship by Rathbones not only enables us to step up our charitable objectives, it also means that the value of the Prize has increased, with this year’s winner set to receive a cheque for £30,000.
2020 Rathbones Folio Prize Winner
The winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize 2019 is Valeria Luiselli, for ‘The Lost Children Archive’. See the full details here.
About The Academy
The character and qualities of the prize are shaped by The Folio Prize Academy, an international group of people, primarily writers and critics, who are immersed in the world of books.
The Academy will play a decisive role in selecting titles to be considered for the shortlist, and each year…
