Judges - Women's Prize : Women's Prize

“It is: an honor to judge the Women’s Prize for Fiction; a thrill to discover new authors and seasoned ones, trying new things; a challenge to assemble a small library of exemplary books; a privilege to think with my fellow judges about fiction’s unique status in our imperfect world.” – Merve Emre, chair of the 2027 Women’s Prize for Fiction

Every year, a panel of five women – all passionate readers and at the top of their respective professions – choose the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The 2027 Women’s Prize for Fiction panel is chaired by Merve Emre, scholar, critic, editor and professor, joined by Charlotte Collins, Editor-in-Chief of SheerLuxe, broadcaster and podcast host; Esther Freud, novelist and playwright; Theresa Lola, poet, writer and artist; and Eimear McBride, novelist and writer.

Merve Emre (Chair)

Merve Emre is the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University and the Director of the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism. Her books include Paraliterary: The Making of Bad Readers in Postwar America, The Personality Brokers (selected as one of the best books of 2018 by the New York Times, The Economist, NPR, and The Spectator, and the basis of the HBO documentary Persona), The Ferrante Letters (winner of the 2021 PROSE Award for Literature), and The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway. She has been awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize, the Robert B. Silvers Prize for Literary Criticism, and the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and head of special projects at The New York Review of Books.

Theresa Lola

Theresa Lola is a poet, writer, and artist whose work includes two poetry collections In Search of Equilibrium and Ceremony for the Nameless. Lola held her debut visual poetry exhibition at Bermondsey Project Space in 2023, and has also held poetry residencies at Wellcome Collection and Bethlem Museum of the Mind. She contributed to the National Gallery’s immersive exhibition Sensing the Unseen, and hosted the BBC Radio 4 audio documentary Poems at Dusk. She holds an Mst in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. From 2019–2020, Lola served as Young People’s Laureate for London.

Eimear McBride

Eimear McBride is the 2014 winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the author of the four novels The City Changes Its Face, Strange Hotel, The Lesser Bohemians and A Girl is a Half-formed Thing. She is also the author of the non-fiction work Something Out of Place: Women & Disgust. She is from the west of Ireland and at seventeen moved to London to study at Drama Centre. In 2022, she wrote and directed A Very Short Film About Longing for BBC Film. McBride has also held the inaugural Creative Fellowship at the Beckett Research Centre, University of Reading, and lives in London.

Esther Freud

Esther Freud is the author of ten novels, including Hideous Kinky, her debut which was made into a film starring Kate Winslet, The Sea House, Mr Mac and Me, I Couldn’t Love You More and her most recent, My Sister and Other Lovers. Her first full length play, Stitchers, was produced in London in 2018, and she has also written a children’s book, Enchanted Beach. Freud was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists in 1993, and today her books have been translated into 13 languages. Esther also writes regularly for a number of newspapers and magazines, and teaches creative writing.

Charlotte Collins

Charlotte Collins is Editor-in-Chief of SheerLuxe and one of the leading editorial voices in British digital media. With expertise spanning fashion, beauty, lifestyle and the evolving publishing landscape, Charlotte is also an experienced broadcaster, podcast host, interviewer, live presenter and a regular media commentator on fashion and the wider industry. She is also a frequent guest lecturer at leading institutions including London College of Fashion, speaking on editorial, digital media and the future of publishing.