LOCAL writing talent has made it onto the Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist.
This year’s longlist includes Leamington-based author Kit de Waal for The Best of Everything and Warwick University alumna Rozie Kelly for Kingfisher.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction, sponsored by Audible and Baileys, is the greatest celebration of female creativity in the world. The 2026 longlist, announced just ahead of International Women’s Day on Sunday March 8, reflects the charity’s belief that every woman’s voice has the power to elicit and inspire positive change.
The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal – who was born in Birmingham but now lives in Leamington – tells the story of a working-class Caribbean woman living in Birmingham between the 1970s and 1990s: a personal, tender celebration of found families, and the life-changing power of kindness and love in the face of grief and loneliness.
Judge Salma El-Wardany said: “The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal is a beautifully written book about a woman’s longing, kindness, chosen family, and finding happiness when the odds are against you. It left such a mark on me.”
In Kingfisher, debut novelist and Warwick University alumna Rozie Kelly presents a captivating novel about two writers and their complex relationship; a lyrical meditation on grief, power, desire and our search for identity, how we love and the consequences when we fall short.
Judge Mona Arshi said: “Written in arresting, energetic prose, Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly is a short poetic book about two writers and their complex relationship. It’s a story of how we love and what happens when we fall short.”
Claire Shanahan, executive director of the Women’s Prize Trust, added: “Across three decades, the Women’s Prize for Fiction has transformed the literary landscape – elevating women’s writing, empowering new voices, and bringing together a global community of readers. At the Women’s Prize Trust, the charity behind the Prize, our mission remains unchanged: to help build a future where every woman’s story has a place, and where these rich and vital narratives are put into the hands of more readers. We are immensely proud of this year’s longlist, and I offer our congratulations to these sixteen exceptional novelists, and gratitude to the judges.”
This year’s Chair of Judges, Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia, is joined by poet, novelist and essayist, Mona Arshi, author, presenter, poet and speaker, Salma El-Wardany, writer, podcaster, actor and comedian, Cariad Lloyd, and author, broadcaster and DJ Annie Macmanus.
The judges will now narrow down the longlist to a shortlist of six, which will be announced on 22 April 2026. The winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction will be revealed on Thursday 11 June 2026 at the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer party in Bedford Square Gardens, London (along with the winner of its sister prize, the 2026 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction).
The winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction will receive £30,000, anonymously endowed, along with a statuette known as the ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the late artist Grizel Niven.
Previous winners include Yael van der Wouden (2025), Barbara Kingsolver (2023, 2010), Maggie O’Farrell (2020), Kamila Shamsie (2018), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2007), Zadie Smith (2006), and Ann Patchett (2002).
