Results – Best Novel Opening 2024

Eva Mason with A Witch’s Compendium of Demons and Rabbits 

Eva grew up in a house where every spare section of wall was turned into a bookshelf. After spending her teenage years reading in her bed, it was a surprise to literally no one when she decided to study English Literature at the University of Brighton and then the University of Bristol, where she received an MA in Creative Writing. She writes very fun, very queer Fantasy and Sci-fi for Teens and Young Adults, drawing from her own experiences as a queer woman with ADHD, as well as her time working with LGBTQ+ youth in Bristol. A certified nerd, Eva loves anything mythical, witchy or strange, and when not writing or reading she can be found playing video games, procrastinating by building worlds for her DnD group, and taking (too) many pictures of her little black cat, named Stokley, who she is tragically allergic to. A Compendium of Demons and Rabbits is Eva’s first novel and is currently a work in progress.

Emily Grice with Bittersweet Rebel Girl

Emily, a lifelong lover of stories, history and chocolate, graduated from Bath Spa’s MA: Writing for Young People with Distinction in 2022. She later won first prize in the Wells’ Literary Festival Book for Children competition and was shortlisted for Searchlight’s novel opening competition in 2023 and 2024. Before becoming a teacher, she trained as a chocolatier and once made chocolate live on BBC radio. She works as a secondary school Food and Nutrition teacher at a small independent school in Southampton. She lives in Romsey, Hampshire with her two daughters, husband and two rebellious guinea pigs.

Miranda Nugent with Celery’s Giant

With an MA from Bath Spa University in Writing for Young People, Miranda now lives and writes on a small farm in Devon. Unable to recall a time when she didn’t want to write stories, Miranda previously worked as a writer for the children’s sections of The Times and The Sunday Times. It was there she met Eva Ibbotson, whose understated dedication to her craft as well as her wonderful books, inspired her to write middle-grade adventure stories like Celery’s Giant.

S. R. Simmons with Dojo Dogs

S. R. Simmons writes stories for children that range from laugh-out-loud comedies to high-octane, action-packed adventures. His dark adult novel, Angela, was shortlisted for the 2024 Jericho Writers Awards, and he is currently studying writing for children at the Golden Egg Academy. He holds a degree in Animation and works as a video game artist.

S. R. Simmons lives on the south coast, and cannot be killed by squirrels as he is under the sworn protection of a little fluffy white dog called Mali. Sadly, despite her heroic efforts, Mali probably wouldn’t quite make the cut as one of the Dojo Dogs—just don’t tell her that!

Twitter: @SRSimmonsWrites

Charlotte Teeple Salas with Sleeping Fury

As a child in California, Charlotte caught the story bug from Star Wars and ballet, when she yearned to be the first ballerina in space. Her writing is inspired by studies in art history and museology, her work in museums, adventures in Hollywood television and life in four countries. She’s a Golden Egg Academy alumna, a contributor to Leaf Journal, and has an MA in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University, where she was Managing Editor of Brave New Words, the 2022 anthology. Her work has been shortlisted for Searchlight’s Best Novel Opening (2021), longlisted for the Guppy YA Open Submission (2022) and Write Mentor Award (2024). She lives in North London with her American-British-French family. Sleeping Fury, her current work in progress, is a YA/crossover romantic fairytale fantasy.

Ella Leith withThe Boy at the Wynyates

Ella Leith is a writer obsessed with folklore, magic, and historical mysteries. She writes for children and adults—for anyone interested in the weird and uncanny, and how the past also exists in the present. She is currently completing the final edit of her work in progress, The Boy at the Wynyates, a creepy middle-grade/clean teen novel about secrets, memory, and how we cope with not knowing. An early draft was longlisted for the Mslexia Children’s and YA Novel Competition 2022, and its revised opening has been shortlisted for the Searchlight Award 2024. Her short fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry has been published in The Kitchen Table Quarterly, The Icarus Collective, Hare’s Paw, Gramarye, and Dear Damsels, among others. Originally from the Midlands of England, Ella now lives in Malta with her partner, a haunted terracotta head, and several hundred notebooks. Visit www.ellaleith.com for more about her work.

Shannon E. Langan withThe Fallen Phoenix Girls

Raised by the wild Devon coast, Shannon grew up steeped in fantasy but never intended to write. Unsure of her calling, she studied Sociology and qualified in Integrative Counselling. Collecting books and imagining worlds remained her constants, and as her stories grew too vast to contain, she began jotting them down. Approaching thirty, she answered the call to write and recently completed an MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University—class of 2025. For the past four years, Shannon has worked with teenage girls, and she crafts fierce female protagonists in the hope of amplifying their voices. The Fallen Phoenix Girls is a work-in-progress, with half of the story written.

Eilidh McIntosh with The Timekeepers

Eilidh McIntosh spent her teenage years growing up in Orkney, where the wild landscapes and rich story-telling traditions inspired her love of writing. She now lives in the suburbs of Glasgow and balances family life as a mum of three teenagers with her love of photography, writing and the outdoors. The Timekeepers is a work in progress which has previously been shortlisted for the Kelpies Prize for writing in 2024. 

Mayra Calvani with Violeta’s Adventures in Doll-land 

Mayra Graciela Calvani is a Puerto Rican speculative fiction writer of picture books, middle-grade, young adult and adult. She holds a BA in Creative Writing and an MA in Western Literature, and writes fiction inspired by her travels and Spanish-Lebanese-Corsican heritage. Her young adult work-in-progress was the recipient of the SCBWI ‘Work of Outstanding Progress’ grant. After having lived in three continents, she’s settled in Belgium, where she volunteers as Assistant Regional Advisor for SCBWI Benelux. Violeta’s Adventures in Doll-Land is a middle-grade Caribbean gothic horror, complete at 31,000 words. Besides making the shortlist in this competition, this novel has also won an Honorable Mention Award from the Historical Novel Society, and was shortlisted for the I Am in Print Awards.