Judge: Wainwright Prize 2024

I am delighted to have been invited to join the judging panel for The Wainwright Nature Prize 2024.

The prize was created in Alfred Wainwright’s name to showcase the growing genre of nature-writing in publishing and to celebrate and encourage exploration of the outdoors to all readers.

It’s been great to have an excuse to read more books - especially those focused on nature and the outdoors! The 2024 longlist was impressive and it was so tough to put forward suggestions for the shortlist - I know it will have been equally difficult for all of the judging panel.

We are now about to meet to judge the shortlist:

Rural by Rebecca Smith

Bothy by Kat Hill

Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee

Late Light by Michael Malay

Uprooting by Marchelle Farrell

The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing

Local by Alastair Humphreys.

Such an amazingly diverse range of topics and authors. I’m so pleased to have had the opportunity to spend time with these books, and look forward to the final discussions that are coming up with the rest of the panel before the winners of all three Wainwright prizes are announced in September.

You can find out more about the Wainwright Prize, the longlists and shortlists for all the prizes on the Wainwright Prize website.