Rosamund Taylor, Gavin McCrea, and Seán Hewitt are all on the Polari longlists for 2023. Taylor’s In Her Jaws (Banshee Press) makes the Polari First Book longlist, while Hewitt’s All Down Darkness Wide and McCrea’s Cells are in the running for the Polari Prize.
The only dedicated award for LGBTQ+ literature, the quality of submissions was exceptionally high this year, said Polari Prize founder, Paul Burston.
In her debut collection, Rosamund Taylor dares us across thresholds and invites us to glimpse the world as we’ve never seen it before. She boldly charts a journey of survival and transformation with poems on history reimagined, astronomy, sorcery, wild landscapes, talismanic creatures, and queer love.
“Cells is a raw, throbbing thing; the literary equivalent of an open wound, but one that’s been cauterised by a highly skilled surgeon … one of the very best, most authentic, beautiful, and brutal depictions of a deep and abiding, albeit imperfect love between a son and his mother, not to mention the story of the making of an acutely talented writer.”
—Lucy Scholes, The Telegraph
“The narrative is replete with such melancholy, illuminating, haunting passages. No straightforward conclusions can be drawn from Hewitt’s memoir, but this is often the mark of a great artist.”—Eoghan Smith
The judges this year are authors Rachel Holmes and Karen McLeod, poet Sophia Blackwell, and 2022 prize winner Adam Zmith.
The judging panel includes author VG Lee, literary critic Suzi Feay, Chris Gribble of the National Centre for Writing, and 2022 prize winner Joelle Taylor. Both prize panels are chaired by founder, journalist and author Paul Burston.
This year’s shortlists will be announced on September 27, 2023 at Polari on Sea in Hastings, with the winners’ prize ceremony returning to the British Library on November 24, 2023, where the winner will receive the prize of £2,000.
THE POLARI LONGLISTS
The Polari First Book Prize Longlist
Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder (Wildfire)
A Visible Man by Edward Enninful (Bloomsbury)
The Whale Tattoo by Jon Ransom (Muswell Press)
Whatever Happened to Queer Happiness? by Kevin Brazil (Influx Press)
Rising of the Black Sheep by Livia Kojo Alour (Polari Press)
The New Life by Tom Crewe (Chatto & Windus)
None of the Above by Travis Alabanza (Canongate Books)
Orpheus Builds a Girl by Heather Parry (Gallic Books)
In Her Jaws by Rosamund Taylor (Banshee Press)
Is This Love? by CE Riley (Serpent’s Tail)
No Country for Girls by Emma Styles (Sphere)
Some Integrity by Padraig Regan (Carcanet Press)
The Polari Prize Longlist
Fire Island by Jack Parlett (Granta Books)
Roam by Juno Roche (Dialogue Books)
Other People Manage by Ellen Hawley (Swift Press)
All Down Darkness Wide by Seán Hewitt (Jonathan Cape)
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart (Picador)
Mother’s Boy by Patrick Gale (Tinder Press)
The Schoolhouse by Sophie Ward (Corsair)
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield (Picador)
Rookie by Caroline Bird (Carcanet Press)
Cells by Gavin McCrea (Scribe)
Screen Age by Fenton Bailey (Ebury Press)
Here Again Now by Okechukwu Nzelu (Dialogue Books)
