The Jhalak Prize
Anni Domingo, Stella Oni and Denise Saul
Anni Domingo
Anni works regularly as a Theatre Director. She currently lectures on Drama and directs at several Drama Colleges. Anni won a place at Hedgebrook Writers in Residence Programme in Seattle and the National Writing Centre’s Escalator programme in Norwich. Her debut novel, Breaking the Maafa Chain, was published in September 2021, by Jacaranda Books, UK and by Pegasus Books, USA in 2022. The novel was short-listed for the Lucy Cavendish First novel Competition and longlisted for Mslexia novel competition 2019. An extract from her novel Breaking the Maafa Chain also won the Myriad Editions First Novel competition in 2018 and is featured in the New Daughters of Africa (2019) anthology edited by Margaret Busby. Her poems and short stories are published in various anthologies including Wild Imperfections, published by Penguin in November 2021. Her first screenplay, Blessed Assurance has just been filmed and will be out later this year. Anni is now working on her second novel Ominira as part of her PhD.
Stella Oni
Stella Oni's debut police procedural, Deadly Sacrifice, featuring detective Toks Ade, the first black female police detective in UK fiction, was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize in 2016 and published by Jacaranda in 2020. The gripping novel was an Audible Crime and Thriller pick. She has contributed to various anthologies, including Midnight Hour, published by Crooked Lane. She won the International Thriller Writers (ITW) scholarship in 2021 and was a runner-up for the inaugural CrimeFest bursary for writers of colour in 2022. Stella is an ITW judge and was an adjudicator for the Scottish Association of Writers Crime Fiction Pitlochry Prize 2023. She is a popular speaker and also delivers crime fiction workshops. She is writing book two of the Toks Ade Mystery series and the first of her contemporary crime cosy, The London House Mystery series. Stella also creates content in Food and Technology, loves reading and reviewing books on her blog.
Denise Saul
Denise Saul’s debut collection The Room Between Us (Pavilion / Liverpool University Press, 2022) was shortlisted for the TS Eliot poetry prize 2022, was a Poetry Book Society Summer Recommendation 2022 and was longlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2023. Her poem ‘Golden Grove’ was highly commended in the Forward Prize 2022. She is the author of two pamphlets: White Narcissi (flipped eye, 2007), a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice; and House of Blue (Rack Press, 2012), a PBS Pamphlet Recommendation. A recent guest editor for The Poetry Review, Denise is a past winner of The Poetry Society’s Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and a Fellow of The Complete Works. She received an ACE Grant for the Arts Award for her video poem collaborative project, Silent Room: A Journey of Language. Denise lives in Surrey.
Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize
J. P. Rose, Rashmi Sirdeshpande and Danielle Jawando
J. P. Rose
J. P. Rose was born in Manchester, adopted early and grew up in the Yorkshire countryside where racial tolerance ‘wasn’t even a concept’. Feeling isolated, but always a daydreamer, it was animals and writing stories which kept her company. She trained as an actress but frustrated at not only the lack of diversity but the stereotyping of roles she was auditioning for, J. P. eventually decided to focus on her love of the written word, as well as leading writing workshops in prisons before eventually starting to write novels. As a Black author with dual heritage, J. P. is passionate that children’s books are inclusive and diverse, a celebration of self, which help to connect, empower and affirm. J.P.’s teen psychological horror book, The Haunting Of Tyrese Walker, which looks at grief, has been short and longlisted for several awards, including the Jhalak Prize 2023. J.P. is not only a children’s author but also is the bestselling author of over 16 gritty crime novels, writing under the name of Jacqui Rose, selling almost a million copies across all formats. Writing for adults, she has just collaborated with Martina Cole on Martina’s latest novel, and writing for children, J.P. has lots of exciting projects coming out, including a historical middle grade novel. J. P. lives in the countryside with her family surrounded by her beloved horses and other animals.
Rashmi Sirdeshpande
Rashmi Sirdeshpande is an award-winning children's author who writes a mix of fiction and non-fiction. Her picture book with Ruchi Mhasane, Dadaji's Paintbrush, was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize in 2023. She was an official World Book Day author for 2022 and her books have been published around the world and reviewed in a number of newspapers from The Guardian to The Wall Street Journal. Her first picture book, Never Show a T-Rex a Book, illustrated by Diane Ewen, won the 2021 Society of Authors Queen's Knickers Award and the Anna Dewdney Award in the USA and was shortlisted for the Lollies 2022. Her non-fiction book, Good News: Why the World is Not as Bad As You Think, illustrated by Adam Hayes, was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards.
Danielle Jawando
Danielle Jawando is an author and screenwriter. Her debut YA novel, And the Stars Were Burning Brightly, won best senior novel in the Great Reads Award, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the YA Book Prize, the Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize, the Branford Boase Award and was long-listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Her previous publications include the non-fiction children’s book Maya Angelou (Little Guides to Great Lives), the short stories Paradise 703 (long-listed for the Finishing Line Press Award) and The Deerstalker (selected as one of six finalists for the We Need Diverse Books short story competition), as well as several short plays performed in Manchester and London. Danielle has also worked on Coronation Street as a storyline writer. Her second novel, When Our Worlds Collided, won the 2023 Jhalak Children’s and YA Prize and the 2023 YA Book Prize. Her third novel, If My Words Had Wings, will be published in May 2024.