The 2025 Deborah Rogers Award Longlist Announced
In its tenth year, eleven books grace the longlist of the Deborah Rogers Award Longlist, comprising both novels and short stories.
The biennial award continues its mission to champion new voices in fiction and non-fiction, offering a £10,000 prize to an unpublished writer to complete their first book, alongside £3,000 each for two shortlisted authors. This year the list features writers from Nigeria and Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, Bangalore, England and Eire, showcasing the breadth and diversity of contemporary writing.
The 2025 Deborah Rogers Longlisted Writers
- Yellow is Not for Girls Like Me – June Aming (novel)
- Ascension – Piers Kobina Buckman (novel)
- Quarehawks – Fearghal Hall (stories)
- A Good Woman – Lizzie Golds (stories)
- We Can Start This Story – Tega Oghenechovwen (stories)
- Tales of Shawq – Leeor Ohayon (stories)
- Happy When – Jenny O’Donnell (novel)
- Do You Think I’m a Bad Person? – Olakunle Ologunro (stories)
- Breathwork – Rosa Mäkelä (stories)
- Ratri – Saranya Murthi (novel)
- She Herself is a Haunted House – Georgia Poplett (novel)
About the 2025 Deborah Rogers Award Longlisted Writers
June Aming
June Aming is an award-winning writer based in Trinidad and Tobago. Her work has appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Moving Right Along, ‘16’, and Voicing Our Vision. She was shortlisted for the Small Axe Literary Competition (2014) and longlisted for the BCLF Writing Competition (2024). In 2020, she earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of the West Indies. In 2023, she won the BlackInk Writing Competition and received a Bocas Breakthrough Fellowship, mentored by Lauren Francis-Sharma. She has completed a manuscript of short stories and is currently working on a female-driven historical novel.
Piers Kobina Buckman
Piers Kobina Buckman was born in Philadelphia and raised between London and Accra, Ghana. A research project in Ghana inspired his novel Ascension, following a young girl’s determination to escape poverty. He studied at the University of Manchester and was a member of its Creative Writing Society. He was a finalist in the Borough Press BAME Open Submissions Competition in 2019, and a finalist for the Merky Books New Writers’ Prize 2024/25.
Fearghal Hall
Fearghal Hall is a writer from Tipperary, Ireland. He comes from a farming family and occasionally farms himself. He holds an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia, awarded with a scholarship. His writing has appeared in Guernica, Eggbox, and the BPA Longlist, and has received support from Dublin City Council and the Arts Council of Ireland. He was also selected for The Stinging Fly’s six-month workshop.
Lizzie Golds
Lizzie Golds is a writer living in Bristol. Her stories have been recognised by the Bristol Short Story Prize, Fish Short Story Prize, and Bath Short Story Award. Her work has been published in Gutter, Litro, Fictive Dream, Riptide, and others. She works as a copywriter in advertising and is currently developing her debut short story collection and novel.
Social: Instagram @lizzie_golds | Bluesky @lizziegolds.bsky.social
Tega Oghenechovwen
Tega Oghenechovwen is a Nigerian writer whose work explores psycho-trauma, social justice, displacement, and communal grief. His writing has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Joyland, The Rumpus, Ruminate Magazine, and more. He holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Maryland, College Park, and has received support from Tin House, Kimbilio, Kweli, and the Caine Prize.
Social: Instagram & X @tega_chovwen
Leeor Ohayon
Leeor Ohayon is a writer from London, currently based in Norwich, where he is pursuing a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia. His work has appeared in The London Magazine, The White Review, Apartamento, Brick Lane Bookshop New Short Stories (2021 & 2023), Paper Brigade, RSL Review, and Prospect Magazine.
Jenny O’Donnell
Jenny O’Donnell is a writer working on her debut novel. Originally from the West of Ireland, she spent years living and teaching in Australia and London, before returning to her home country. Her writing explores intergenerational trauma, communication, and the repercussions of repressed emotion and memory. A songwriter and poet, she has completed an MA in Writing at the University of Galway.
Olakunle Ologunro
Olakunle Ologunro is a writer from Lagos, Nigeria. He holds an MFA from The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, where his work received honorable mention for the Benjamin T. Sankey Fellowship. His writing has been supported by the Elizabeth George Foundation, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Juniper Summer Workshop, and Aspen Words, where he was named a 2025 Emerging Writer Fellow. His stories appear in Story Magazine, Lolwe, Queer Africa, and Feel Good anthologies.
Rosa Mäkelä
Rosa Mäkelä is a writer from County Galway. Her short stories have been published in Banshee, Channel, The Pigs Back, and are forthcoming in The Stinging Fly. Her plays have been performed at festivals including the Dublin Fringe Festival and the Prague Quadrennial.
Saranya Murthi
Saranya Murthi is a writer and audiovisual artist from Bangalore, India. She writes horror and speculative fiction that explores trauma, identity, and the natural world. A graduate in Contemporary Art Practices, she is currently completing her Master’s degree in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, where she received the 2024 MA Writer Award. Alongside writing fiction, she also makes industrial electronic music. Social: Instagram @canned_laughter
Georgia Poplett
Georgia Poplett is a writer, editor, and researcher. Her PhD on postpartum psychosis and Gothic literature was awarded a Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Award in 2021. She has taught at Durham, UCL, and currently lectures in Creative Writing at Exeter University. Her debut novel, She Herself is a Haunted House, is a literary Gothic tale of a cursed house and two women living a century apart. She lives in London and is fascinated by medieval herbalism.
Social: X @GeorgiaPoplett | Instagram @georgia_eleni233
The shortlist will be revealed on 22 October 2025 by this year’s distinguished judging panel: Erica Wagner (Chair), Inua Ellams, and Natalie Haynes. The winner will be announced at a ceremony on 4 November 2025.
About The Deborah Rogers Award
Established in 2015 in memory of the esteemed literary agent Deborah Rogers, the Deborah Rogers Award, offers financial support to unpublished writers. It is open to writers residing in the British Commonwealth or Eire. Submissions are invited biennially in January, with judging taking place in the autumn. The award typically receives 800–1,000 entries. The 2023 winner, Neil Rollison, was recognised for his novel The Dead Don’t Bleed, which will be published by Jonathan Cape in 2026.
This year’s chair of Judges, Erica Wagner, said:
“This valuable award demonstrates a commitment to nurturing talent: keeping an eye out for up-and-coming writers who are making the world new is something I’ve always held close to my heart. To be involved in a prize like this is very meaningful to me, and I look forward to exciting discoveries.”
Past winners
Previous recipients of the Award have been published by Picador, Hamish Hamilton, Bloomsbury, Chatto & Windus, Virago and Jonathan Cape, among others. They have gone on to publishing success in the form of international publishing deals and further prize recognition. The inaugural winner was Sharlene Teo in 2016 for her novel Ponti. Ponti was published by Picador (UK) and Simon and Schuster (US) in 2018 and translated into eleven languages. On receiving the prize, Sharlene said:
“Winning the Deborah Rogers Award was life-changing and provided me with the confidence and support to finish my novel.”
In 2018, Deepa Anappara received the Award for her novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line. Published by Chatto & Windus (UK) and Random House (US) in 2020, it has been translated into 22 languages and was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “a Literary Supernova”. Named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian Literature. Time included it in its list of ‘The 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time’. Deepa reflected that:
“Winning the DRF Writers Award and listening to the helpful comments of the judges gave me both the permission and conviction I needed to finish my novel.”
