Nigerian-British Author Oyinkan Braithwaite Joins Judging Panel as Women’s Prize Discoveries 2027 Opens for Submissions
The Women’s Prize Trust has opened submissions for the seventh edition of Discoveries, its flagship writer development programme supporting unagented, unpublished women novelists, with Nigerian-British author Oyinkan Braithwaite joining this year’s judging panel.
The panel is chaired by Kate Mosse CBE FRSL, who is Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Non-Fiction, with Braithwaite joined by author and former litigation lawyer Ela Lee, Curtis Brown literary agent Ciara Finan, and Curtis Brown Creative founder Anna Davis.
Braithwaite is the best-selling author of My Sister The Serial Killer (2018), which has now been translated into 30 languages and sold millions of copies. The book won the 2019 LA Times Award for Best Crime Thriller, the 2019 Morning News Tournament of Books, the 2019 Amazon Publishing Reader’s Award for Best Debut Novel and the 2019 Anthony Award for Best First Novel. It was also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019, among several other prizes, and longlisted for both the Booker Prize 2019 and the 2020 Dublin Literary Award.
Braithwaite has published several short stories over the last few years for a variety of publications and platforms, including Audible and McSweeney’s. She also wrote the novella The Baby is Mine in support of adult literacy. In 2025, her second novel, The Cursed Daughters, was published to critical acclaim.
Alongside her work as a novelist, she is also a screenwriter with two projects in development for television and one for feature film, the latter an adaptation of her first novel.
The Discoveries programme is designed by the Women’s Prize Trust to address the specific challenges that women face as writers, and is part of the charity’s commitment to provide a platform for novelists currently underrepresented in the UK publishing industry.
Free to enter, unagented and unpublished women writers in the UK and Ireland are invited to submit the first 10,000 words of a novel for adult readers for the chance to receive an offer of literary agent representation and a bursary of £5,000. This is alongside access to a bespoke creative writing course, personalised mentorships and workshops, practical advice and industry insight, a curated programme of outreach events and online content, as well as the opportunity to become part of a highly supportive and active writing community.
In 2026, 76% of entries were from writers outside of London, with record submissions from underrepresented communities within publishing, including writers who identify as disabled, working-class and Global Majority.
Discoveries has inspired thousands of women to share their writing for the first time, with over 16,000 entries since the programme began in 2020. Out of the 96 writers selected in the first six years of Discoveries, eleven alumni have published their debut novels and 33 women (34%) have signed with literary agents.
Submissions are open from 15 September 2026 until 11:59pm on 11 January 2027. The Discoveries 2027 longlist and shortlist will be announced on 6 and 20 May respectively, with the winner announced on 3 June 2027.
The winner of Discoveries 2027 will receive an offer of representation from the Curtis Brown Group and a bursary of £5,000; one promising writer, named the ‘Discoveries Scholar’, will win a scholarship to attend a three-month Writing Your Novel course with Curtis Brown Creative (worth £2,000); the shortlist of six authors (including the winner and scholar) will each be offered a one-to-one mentoring session with a Curtis Brown agent plus a free place on a six-week Curtis Brown Creative course of their choice and a studio day at Audible; while the 16 longlisted authors will each receive a place on a bespoke, two-week Discoveries Writing Development Course taught by Laura Barnett, plus an Audible subscription.