The Nan Shepherd Prize 2023 shortlist has been announced

24 October 2023

The Nan Shepherd Prize prize, for underrepresented voices in nature writing, runs every two years. This year – from a longlist of seventeen – six exciting new writers with wondrously varied perspectives, styles and subjects have been chosen for an exceptionally strong shortlist.

The 2023 shortlist is:

The Night Run by Louis Bailey
Lang: The City Many Times Before and After by Meg Bertera-Berwick
Potatoes and Other Hobbies by Viktoriia Grivina
Morphoses: On Nature’s Processes and Processed Nature by Annie Lord
A Beautiful and Vital Place by Alycia Pirmohamed
threading rak flowers by Ruth L. Satsi

Congratulations to each of the shortlisted authors. Read about each of the submissions at the Nan Shepherd Prize website.

The prize is deliberately structured to have entry requirements that match the standard submission guidelines of agents and publishers, so that whether or not entrants reach the longlist or shortlist, the work they put into entering is not wasted but can be useful in any future submissions. The prize offers some advice for writers on how to proceed in its resources.

The winner will be announced on 15 November. They receive a £10,000 publishing contract with Canongate Books and, if they do not already have an agent, an offer of representation with Caro Clarke of Portobello Literary.