There is an initial selection panel who produce a long list. All the titles on the long list are read several times by all the judging panel before submitting a short list to our professional judges.

Annie Barrows began her career as an editor and switched sides after receiving her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in 1996. The author of some twenty-odd books, she writes for both children and adults. Her works for children include the best-selling “Ivy and Bean” series for young readers, The “Magic Half” and its sequel “Magic in the Mix” for the middle grades, and the recently released “Nothing” for young adults. She is the co-author, with her aunt Mary Ann Shaffer, of the international best-seller “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”, now the basis a major motion picture releasing in Spring, 2018. Annie’s most recent novel for adults is “The Truth According to Us”. Current projects include an eleventh book in the “Ivy and Bean” series, a picture book entitled “John Marco”, and a third adult novel, the title of which remains shrouded in mystery. Annie lives in northern California.

Inspired by a visit to Spinalonga, the abandoned Greek leprosy colony, Victoria Hislop wrote The Island in 2005. It became an international bestseller and a 26-part Greek TV series. She was named Newcomer of the Year at the British Book Awards and is now an ambassador for Lepra. Her affection for the Mediterranean took her to Spain, which inspired her second bestseller The Return, and she returned to Greece to tell the turbulent tale of Thessaloniki in The Thread, shortlisted for a British Book Award and confirming her reputation as an inspirational storyteller. The Sunrise, published in 2014 and Cartes Postales from Greece published in 2016, were both top ten Sunday Times bestsellers published to widespread acclaim.

Born in 1962 and raised on a farm in Co Wexford, Katie Donovan now lives in Dalkey, Co Dublin. She has published five books of poetry, all with Bloodaxe Books UK, the most recent of which, “Off Duty” (2016), was shortlisted for the Irish Times/Poetry Now Award. Her other collections are: “Watermelon Man” (1993); “Entering the Mare” (1997); “Day of the Dead” (2002) and “Rootling: New and Selected Poems” (2010). She is the 2017 recipient of the O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry. With poet Brendan Kennelly and the late critic A. Norman Jeffares, she edited the acclaimed anthology “Ireland’s Women: Writings Past and Present”, which was published in Ireland, the UK and the US in 1996.

A former journalist, she is a graduate of TCD and the University of California at Berkeley. She has taught Creative Writing at third level - NUI Maynooth and Dun Laoghaire IADT – and in diverse settings such as Mountjoy Prison and St Vincent’s Hospital Dublin (where she facilitated a group of women with breast cancer to produce their own anthology, “The Right Kind of Breeze”). She worked as Writer-in-Residence for her local borough, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, from 2006 to 2008.

She is an Amatsu practitioner (Amatsu is a form of osteopathy for ligaments and joints) and has just qualified as a trauma therapist with Ireland Somatic Experiencing.

Michael Jecks is a prolific international novelist with more than forty titles published, five more collaborative novels, and many contributions to anthologies. His Death Ship of Dartmouth (Headline, 2006) was short-listed for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, and his work has been celebrated by the fountain pen manufacturers Conway Stewart and Visconti.

The founder of Medieval Murderers and Bloody Brits, he has served on the committee of the Historical Writers’ Association and as Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association. As an international speaker he has worked with the British Council and at universities and festivals all over America and Europe from Anchorage to Piacenza. In 2014 he was the International Guest of Honour for the Bloody Words festival in Toronto, and Grand Marshall of the first parade in the New Orleans Mardi Gras.

A passionate supporter of new writing, Michael organised the CWA Debut Dagger and has judged a variety of prizes such as the Paddon Award at Exeter University, the Impress Prize and the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. He runs workshops at the Swanwick writers’ summer school and has mentored and tutored students at Exeter University as a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund.

Michael lives on Dartmoor with his wife and two children.