Manchester Writing Competition 2023 winners revealed as Tracey Slaughter and April Yee

Tracey Slaughter and April Yee have won the 2023 Manchester Writing Competition, the UK’s biggest awards for unpublished writing.

Poet Slaughter took home the Manchester Poetry Prize, and Yee was awarded the Manchester Fiction Prize at a gala awards ceremony on Friday evening (December 8). Each winner receives £10,000 prize money from the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University

The two awards were presented by former Poet Laureate and current Creative Director of Manchester Writing School Professor Carol Ann Duffy, who set up the competition in 2008 to celebrate Manchester as an international city of writers, find diverse new voices, and create opportunities for writer development.

Poetry Prize

Slaughter’s portfolio of poems opioid sonatas centred around a car accident was praised by judges for having a “forceful, luminous brilliance” and a “complexity which reveals itself over multiple readings”.

A writer of poetry, fiction, and personal essays, Slaughter is from Aotearoa in New Zealand and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Waikato where she edits literary journals Mayhem and Poetry Aotearoa. 

Her latest works include short story collection Devil’s Trumpet (Te Herenga Waka Press, 2021) and poetry collection Conventional Weapons (Te Herenga Waka Press, 2019). She was awarded the Fish Short Story Prize in 2020, and the Bridport Prize 2014, and has been twice shortlisted for the Manchester Prize, once in Poetry, once in Fiction.

Slaughter was chosen as the Manchester Poetry Prize winner by a judging panel chaired by award-winning poet and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Met Malika Booker, alongside poet Clare Shaw, and poet and independent researcher Momtaza Mehri.

Booker said: “This was a forceful collection of poems. Outstanding and original. The language is vivid, and exciting, and each line sizzles. We found the complex narrative haunting and harrowing yet executed with such forceful luminous brilliance. The theme was so understated that each re-read yielded multiple insights. We kept reading the poems aloud revelling in the breathing taking momentum, beautiful language, and the galloping rhythmic quality. We felt that this was a genuine, unique voice - forceful and outstanding.” 

Slaughter was shortlisted alongside D A Angelo, Elena Croitoru, Shakeema Edwards, Debra Marquart, and Katie O’Pray.

Fiction Prize

Yee’s powerful short story Still Blue Thing explores themes of pregnancy, cancer, loss, and childhood memories.

Former journalist Yee has reported in more than a dozen countries before moving to London where she has served as editor-in-residence at The Georgia Review, and Refugee Journalism Project mentor. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have previously won or been listed for Best of the Net, The Best American Essays, the Ivan Juritz Prize, and the Manchester Poetry Prize.

Yee’s work has been featured in The Times Literary Supplement, The Offing, and Electric Literature, and she has received support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Southbank Centre, the National Book Critics Circle, and the University of East Anglia. 

Yee was awarded the Manchester Fiction Prize by the judging panel which was chaired by award-winning writer and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Met Lara Williams, alongside novelist and journalist Laura Barnett, and writer Oliver Harris, both Senior Lecturers in Creative Writing at Manchester Met.

Williams said: “Picking a winner, and indeed a shortlist, this year has been tremendously difficult, with an almost absurdly high standard of work being submitted. The stories we have shortlisted, we did so for their precision, for their attention to language, and for the emotional impact they had on us as readers. The language throughout these stories is scalpel-sharp, restrained but with an unforgettable emotional punch; both imagery and psychology are original and startlingly vivid. And as all the best stories do, they contain a whole world - a whole life - within the limited word count.” 

Yee was shortlisted alongside Edward Hogan, Dayal Kindy, David McGrath, Nicholas Petty, and Chloë Philp.

Ceremony

Each of the shortlisted authors and poets performed readings of their work during the gala-prize giving ceremony which took place at Manchester Met’s Grosvenor East building, home to Manchester Writing School and Manchester Poetry Library.

This year marks 15 years of the competition which has been crucial in supporting emerging writers in getting a foothold in the industry, providing winners with some financial security to focus on writing full-time, as well as attracting literary agents and getting novels or collections published. To date, the competition has had over 30,000 entries from over 80 countries and championed 250 writers on the shortlists.

It has also awarded more than £220,000 in prize money to writers since its launch and has helped to accelerate the careers of previous winners and finalists including Mona Arshi, Helen Mort, Alison Moore, Pascale Petit, and Momtaza Mehri.

Shortlisted writers and poets for this year’s competition are from across the UK, New Zealand, USA, and the Netherlands, demonstrating Manchester’s status as an international centre for creative writing and the city’s status as an international UNESCO City of Literature.