I am honoured to share that I have been selected as one of the ten Fellows for the Escalator New Writing Fellowships 2025–26 and named one of this year’s Reeves Award Fellows.
It feels surreal to write that sentence.
For twenty years, the Escalator programme by
@writerscentre has supported early-career fiction writers in the East of England, writers whose voices are often underrepresented on UK bookshelves. Many alumni have gone on to publish award-winning, critically acclaimed books. To now be part of this lineage is something I am still absorbing.
A few weeks ago, I received an email telling me that my application had been selected by mentor, Yvvette Edwards.
I thought that was the good news.
But shortly after, I received another email.
I had also been chosen as a Reeves Award Fellow!
It is difficult to express how much that meant to me. As someone who often battles long spells of self-doubt, especially about this project, this acknowledgement feels like a necessary jolt. Like a reminder to keep going and not give in to my inner voices.
To have this project recognised at such an early stage and to be entrusted to develop it under the mentorship of a writer like Yvvette Edwards is an honour I do not take lightly.
Over the next eight months, the fellowship will provide one-to-one mentoring, industry insight sessions, group support, subsidised workshops, a showcase to agents and publishers, and a structured pathway toward finishing and strengthening the book.
Thank you to the National Centre for Writing, the Reeves Award team, my mentor Yvvette Edwards and all the funders and donors of Escalator.
And congratulations to my fellow Escalator writers. I look forward to growing alongside you.
For now, I will simply say: I am grateful. I am ready. And I am committed to doing the work.
~🖤🕯️✨~
📸
@andisapey
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