Announcing the Discoveries Prize winner 2024
BY Discoveries
23rd May 2024
Curtis Brown Creative and Curtis Brown proudly partner with the Women’s Prize Trust and Audible to run Discoveries, a unique writing development prize and programme for unpublished women writers, now in its fourth year.
The 2024 judging panel was chaired by Kate Mosse, novelist, playwright and Founder Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction; Jess Molloy, Curtis Brown literary agent; Anna Davis, Founder and Managing Director of Curtis Brown Creative writing school; and award-winning authors Natasha Brown and Rowan Hisayo Buchanan.
We're excited to reveal this year's winner, chosen from nearly 3,000 women who submitted the openings of their unpublished novels-in-progress to Discoveries 2024.
The winner of the prize is Niamh Connolly, with her contemporary novel Game Theory. Niamh is writing a witty tale of love, friendship, grief and loneliness set in Ireland. As the winner of Discoveries 2023, Niamh receives an offer of representation by Curtis Brown, a cash prize of £5,000 and a place on a Curtis Brown Creative six-week online course. In July, she will also join Curtis Brown Creative’s specially designed two-week Discoveries Writing Development course alongside the other 15 writers longlisted for Discoveries 2024.
We are also very pleased to announce that Zeynep Kazmaz is this year’s Discoveries Scholar, her novel-in-progress Viscid Residue explores isolation born from culture and class divides. Zeynep has been awarded a scholarship place on a three-month Writing Your Novel course with Curtis Brown Creative, where she will receive expert tuition to further develop her novel.
- Chair of judges Kate Mosse said:
'The works-in-progress of both our winner Niamh Connolly and scholar Zeynep Kazmaz both had everything to intrigue and engage a reader – a strong sense of place, distinctive characterisation, accomplished writing, strong emotion and exquisite storytelling. Most of all, each of the judges could not wait to follow these two very different stories through to the end. Congratulations to Niamh and to Zeynep, a heartfelt thank you to my fellow judges, the hardworking team of readers at Curtis Brown and Curtis Brown Creative, and to everyone at Audible who have helped make Discoveries a powerhouse of new writing.' - Curtis Brown literary agent Jess Molloy and Curtis Brown Creative founder and Director Anna Davis said:
‘We absolutely loved reading Niamh’s and Zeynep’s works-in-progress – from the beguiling characters, compelling storytelling and vividly realised settings to the clever humour and nuanced depictions of very contemporary long-term relationships in all their delicious ambiguity. This makes it sound as though the two novels are very similar – but actually they’re wildly different. Frankly we didn’t want to stop reading, and in each case are on the edge of our seats to find out what’s going to happen! We are delighted also that the 14 other writers who’ve been shortlisted and longlisted in this fourth year of the programme will soon be coming together with Niamh and Zeynep for our Discoveries Development course. There is such exciting work here, and we hope the cohort will become trusted readers and supporters for each other, ongoing. Roll on Year Five!’
Read on to learn more about our talented winner and scholar.
Niamh Connolly, Game Theory
Niamh Connolly is an Irish writer, who is currently completing her MA in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia. She has a BA degree in English and History from University College Cork. Her writing has appeared on The Gloss and in Life magazine of the Sunday Independent. Niamh writes to entertain. She feels most inspired when a character or idea takes up residence in her head and refuses to leave her alone. Her novel-in-progress is a retrospective love story, set in Ireland, dealing with bereavement, friendship, financial disparity, miscommunication and loneliness.
- How does it feel to win Discoveries 2024? I'm so happy. This is just the best news, and the best boost of confidence that any writer could hope for. It’s an absolute honour to have my writing recognised by the Women’s Prize Trust and the Discoveries team. I’m so grateful to the judges, the organisers, and the readers behind the scenes, for championing my novel – it means so much to me – thank you.
- What initially inspired your novel-in-progress? I wanted to write a love story. And I write in the first person, which means the voice of my narrator is a central part of my storytelling, so when her voice took up residence in my head, I felt I had the starting point for this novel.
- Are there any locations that have a special connection for you or your novel-in-progress? West Cork. It’s the most beautiful place in the world. It’s my home. Many writers gravitate there. And when my narrator has to move to Ireland as a child, she finds herself living in West Cork. Norwich has also become special to me. My Masters at UEA brought me to Norwich, and it’s the place where I started this novel, and it will be the place where I finish the first draft.
- Who is your favourite female novelist and why? Sally Rooney, primarily because she writes a really good love story. And she keeps things minimal but packs a punch with the words she uses. I’m also a big fan of Kiley Reid, Coco Mellors’s Cleopatra and Frankenstein, Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss, and Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times. And I can’t talk about my favourite female writers without mentioning Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Sharon Horgan – they are masters of combining humour with pathos.
Zeynep Kazmaz, Viscid Residue
Zeynep grew up in Istanbul and currently lives in London. She runs a printing company (but has never printed a book she wrote) and a bookstagram account, successfully avoiding having to think about anything other than books.
Having spent her childhood writing stories full of misspelled words, she temporarily gave up on fiction to get a BA in History and an MA in History of Art. In 2019, she moved to London moments before a global pandemic started, where she spent the summer on her sofa working on her thesis and deciding that she wanted to go back to writing things that wouldn't require footnotes.
She often thinks (and sometimes writes) about being an immigrant who has love/hate relationships with both her old home and her new one.
She cries when she reads the acknowledgements at the end of a book.
- How does it feel to win Discoveries 2024? When I first came across Discoveries, it felt so much like the big leagues that I almost didn’t submit anything. Having now been named the Discoveries Scholar, it is so surreal. Writing had always been my ultimate goal, but had felt slightly out of reach. This experience has been the biggest nod of encouragement to pursue what makes me happiest.
- What initially inspired your novel-in-progress? When I moved to London, I unexpectedly found myself in a world that felt very alien to me – gallery openings, film screenings, overall schmoozy events – and felt that I was both in the midst of it and on the sidelines. That feeling is what got it going.
- Are there any locations that have a special connection for you or your novel-in-progress? I guess just the entirety of Soho? During the pandemic I got lucky with rent and lived very centrally, which was one of the main contributing factors to the now very distant-seeming experiences I had. I also just love people watching, which Soho is always great for.
- Who is your favourite female novelist and why? Sheena Patel! I think she’s the most exciting new author. I loved I’m A Fan, which just felt so raw and witty and resonated with a deeply buried part of me. Reading it was actually what made me think ‘right, it’s okay to let it all out’ and start writing.
Thank you once again to everyone who entered their novels-in-progress to this year's Discoveries Prize. We were deeply impressed by the variety of genres and topics explored as well as the quality of the writing.
You can read all about the Discoveries 2024 shortlist here and the longlist here.
Watch this space, the Discoveries 2025 will open for submissions this September. Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified when we open for entries.