BOOKOUTURE ANNOUNCES SHORTLIST FOR MO SIEWCHARRAN PRIZE 2026 AFTER RECEIVING A RECORD NUMBER OF SUBMISSIONS
Under embargo until 8am BST 8th September 2026, London.
Bookouture has announced the five writers shortlisted for the Mo Siewcharran Prize 2026, which focused this year on romance and psychological thriller submissions.
Launched in 2019, the prize is named in memory of NielsenIQ BookData’s former Director of Marketing and Communications, Mo Siewcharran, and aims to nurture talent from writers from a Black, Asian, minority ethnic and/or mixed heritage background. It runs as part of Hachette UK’s The Future Bookshelf initiative and is sponsored by John Seaton, Mo Siewcharran’s husband and co-founder of the prize, as well as NielsenIQ BookData.
The shortlist has been chosen by a panel of judges, including Ellen Gleeson, Publisher at Bookouture, Hennah Sandhu, former co-chair of THRIVE (Hachette UK’s network for Black Asian and Mixed Heritage employees and allies), Leodora Darlington, author of The Exes, Silé Edwards, award-winning literary agent, and Jenn Li, book influencer @bookmarkonthewall.
Jenny Geras, Managing Director of Bookouture said:
“Bookouture is committed to nurturing talent from under-represented backgrounds and hosting the Mo Siewcharran prize has been the perfect opportunity to share our commercial fiction expertise with undiscovered writers. We received a record number of entries for the prize this year so every writer on the shortlist should be particularly proud of their achievement. I look forward to celebrating with them at our awards ceremony later in the month and wish them all the very best of luck.”
The shortlist (in alphabetical order of first name):
The Benefits of Marriage by Amara Ede
The Other Woman by Claudia Amuah
The Song Beneath the Snow by F.G. Liauw
The Eldest Daughter by Sara Anum
Unquiet Sleep by Shyama Kasinathan
The winner and two runners-up will be announced at the central London prize ceremony on 24th September 2026.
The winner of the prize will receive £2,500, a 1000-word piece of editorial feedback on their novel, and a follow-up online session with an editor. They will also be offered an introductory meeting with a literary agent and invited to an interactive session with the Bookouture team to learn about digital publishing. The winner’s entry will also be taken forward to Bookouture’s acquisitions meeting and considered for publication under their no advance 45% royalty model.
The second and third place runners-up will receive £1,500 and £750 prize money respectively, plus editorial feedback and a hamper of Bookouture books.
About Bookouture
Bookouture is an award-winning, dynamic digital publisher of bestselling commercial fiction. Our unique publishing model and transformative campaigns have created unrivalled international author brands. We connect stories, authors and readers globally, publishing books that reflect the diversity of the societies we live in. Our submissions are always open as we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to share their story.Bookouture is a division of Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in the UK, with 11 publishing divisions and over 60 imprints. Everyone here is proud to be in the business of opening doors and minds.
About Hachette UK:
Our mission at Hachette UK is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity.
We are the UK’s second largest publishing group with 10 autonomous divisions and over 50 imprints with a rich and diverse history. We are the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest growing part of our business.
We publish thousands of new books across the group every year and our authors include Rebecca Yarros, Stephen King, Alice Oseman, John Grisham, Adam Kay, Val McDermid, David Nicholls, J.K. Rowling, Ian Rankin, and Malala Yousafzai.
Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Little, Brown, Orion, John Murray Press, Hodder & Stoughton, Headline, Bookouture and Octopus. Hachette Children’s Group publishes a diverse range of books for children of all ages and Hachette Learning is a market leader in high-quality educational materials and services. In 2022, we welcomed Paperblanks, the second-largest premium stationery brand in the world, to our group.
We have eight offices around the UK, including our headquarters in London and the Hely Hutchinson Centre (HHC) for distribution in Didcot. We have subsidiaries in several other regions, including Australia, India, Ireland, Jamaica and New Zealand.
