Why I'm proud to be part of the Women's Prize for Fiction

Having moved from being an academic, where I was reading literature for a living, to becoming a digital marketing entrepreneur at @unruly, committed to helping companies develop and distribute compelling brand stories, I’m really looking forward to spending the next few months being part of the Women’s Prize for Fiction judging panel, immersed in the stories that are shaping our culture right now.

Now that I've met my amazing fellow judges (many of whom I have admired from afar), @LeylaHussein @dollyalderton @Arifa_Akbar and our awesome chair @KateWilliamsme, I know that we’re going to have a blast together over the coming months and I can’t wait to get going. That said, in a world with *so much* going on IRL (In Real Life), it’s worth pausing to ask if and why fiction matters. That’s certainly what I did before committing to join the panel and I thought I’d share my thoughts with you here.

In short, I believe passionately that the stories we share and celebrate play a huge part in shaping the real world we inhabit and for me there are three key reasons that I’m proud to be part of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

1. Fiction is a place to say the unspeakable so it’s critical that everyone has a voice and the space to be heard. The Women’s Prize for Fiction has been championing female voices since 1996, when it was established by the inspirational author @KateMosse, and as the #MeToo movement continues to gather momentum it’s never been more important to recognize the phenomenal stories that female authors tell.
2. Stories are the cornerstones of identity on so many levels, from nation-states, through global brands, fledgling startups, local communities, families and individuals. And perhaps above all, stories explore questions of human identity, what it means to be human, who we are right now, what we dream of being, or, more dystopically, who we fear becoming. The stories and the characters we read about today help to shape and define our aspirations for ourselves and our future world. That's why they matter so much.
3. Stories are empathy machines: as well as using stories to define and understand ourselves, reading fictional stories enables us to better understand other people’s feelings, motives and perspectives, developing empathy with others and getting us inside their heads like no other medium, powerfully demonstrated by @kamilashamsie's brilliant Home Fire, winner of the 2018 Women’s Prize. That's why stories matter in a polarized world with a widening empathy deficit.

So as well as celebrating 200 years since the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a novel that saw a young woman define the science fiction genre in 1818, I'm looking forward to ripping open the box of books from @WomensPrize and discovering how the talented female authors of 2018 are pushing boundaries, re-defining fiction and telling stories to set the world alight.