MEET OUR WINNERS
We set up the Primadonna Prize because we wanted to open up access to the publishing industry.
We wanted more people to be able to tell their stories. And we wanted everyone to feel welcome to participate. None of these people had ever been published before. Come along to this year’s festival and experience Primadonna’s magic for yourself. You never know, it could be you next.Â
These are the kind of small scale but life-changing impacts that Primadonna is all about. We know it changes lives.
ELISSA SOAVE
HONORIA BEIRNE
GAYATHIRI KAMALAKANTHAN
JO MOREY
NATALIE GREGORY
AND THERE'S MORE...
Came as a festival-goer, left with a book deal!
Louise Mumford
Louise was born in South Wales where she still lives today. In the summer of 2019 Louise experienced a once-in-a-lifetime moment: she was discovered as a new writer by her publisher at the Primadonna Festival. Louise’s debut novel Sleepless was published in December 2020 by HQ HarperCollins. A UK Amazon Kindle Top 50 bestseller, it was the Asda Karin Slaughter Killer Read for July 2021. Her second thriller, The Safe House, was published in May 2022 and her latest novel, The Festival, is published in August 2024.
Jenny Knight
Jenny was born and bred in Suffolk, the daughter of a farm labourer, and went to middle and high school in Stowmarket. After moving around for a few years, she returned to East Anglia and currently lives on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. A prize-winning writer of short story and memoir, she was selected for Kit de Waal’s Common People – An Anthology of Working-Class Writers in 2019. That year, Jenny came to the first Primadonna Festival to talk on a panel about Common People and has been every year since - it’s here she first heard about Akan Books, then HQ CiL, a new imprint of HarperCollins, platformed at Primadonna and headed up by June Sarpong, which aims to remove barriers and create space for stories and voices that have been overlooked. She then submitted her debut novel and was delighted to be chosen as one of their inaugural authors – Wild Moon Rising is out with Akan Books in June 2025.
Anita Lehmann
Anita won the inaugural Make Sioned Laugh competition at Primadonna 2019, performing in front of (then) Radio 4 commissioner for comedy Sioned Wiliam. She is a prize winning children’s author and also writes for adults under the pseudonym Walburga Appleseed, publishing The Princess and the Prick in October 2020 with a new book coming out in autumn 2024.
