Stroud Book Festival is delighted to announce the winners of the inaugural Laurie Lee Prize for Writing.

UNDER 25 YEARS CATEGORY

Archie Woolls for “Scarecrow” and “Snowman” (poetry)

OVER 25 YEARS CATEGORY

JLM Morton for “Source Material” (non-fiction)

The two winners were revealed at a special presentation event at Stroud Book Festival 2022. Biographies of the winning writers follow.

Chair of judges and Laurie Lee Prize founder Katie Fforde said:

As the initiator of the Prize, I was anxious that we wouldn’t have enough entries, but we had plenty and the standard was high. It was hard to pick winners among so many splendid pieces of work, but I am extremely happy with the winners we have chosen.

Open to unpublished Gloucestershire writers across a range of genres, the Laurie Lee Prize for Writing was created this year to acknowledge and honour the work of Stroud’s most famous son, Laurie Lee (1914-1997). The prize was the idea of bestselling Stroud writer, Katie Fforde, and has been established under the umbrella of Stroud Book Festival with the blessing of Laurie Lee’s family, and his literary estate.

Submitted writing must be on a nature or conservation theme. The Prize is open to writers currently resident in Gloucestershire, and to those who were born in the county, and each winner receives £1000 in prize money.

The 2022 judges were Katie Fforde (chair), Jessy Lee (Laurie Lee’s daughter), Norah Perkins (Laurie Lee’s literary agent), and Gloucestershire writers, Jamila Gavin, Adam Horovitz, and Jane Bailey.

About the Winning Authors

Archie Woolls grew up in Bussage and now lives in Stroud. A short story, poetry and script writer, they were selected as one of the winners of the most recent Stroud Short Stories competition, and have been shortlisted for both the 2022 Creative Future Writers Award and Channel 4's New Writers Scheme. Their work is set to be published in the upcoming Black Cat Poetry Press anthology, as well as in the next Stroud Short Stories collection.

JLM Morton was brought up in Gloucestershire and now lives in Stroud. She is an emerging poet with work in over 30 journals in the US and the UK, including The Rialto, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Fenland Poetry Journal, Raceme. She collaborates with other artists on sound installations and exhibitions - recent work includes ‘if trees were lone women, what would they sound like?’ in Galloway Forest, Scotland and 'What's Left When The River is Gone' at Robinson College Cambridge. She’s currently writing her first collection of poetry and a nonfiction book.

About Laurie Lee

Laurie Lee was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1914, and was educated at Slad village school and Stroud Central School. At the age of 19 he walked to London and then travelled on foot through Spain, as described in his book As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. In 1950 he married Katherine Polge and they had one daughter, Jessy.

His bestselling Cider with Rosie (1959) has sold over six million copies worldwide, and was followed by two other volumes of autobiography: As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991). Laurie Lee also published four collections of poems, The Sun My Monument (1944), The Bloom of Candles: Verse from a Poet's Year (1947), My Many-coated Man (1955) and Pocket Poems (1960), as well as A Rose for Winter (1955), The Firstborn (1964), I Can’t Stay Long (1975), and Two Women (1983). Village Christmas, an anthology of uncollected essays, was published posthumously. Laurie Lee died in May 1997 and is buried in Slad village graveyard.

About Stroud Book Festival

Stroud Book Festival is Stroud’s annual celebration of stories, ideas, and community for readers of all ages.

The seventh annual Festival takes place from 2-6 November 2022 in venues across Stroud, including the Sub Rooms, Lansdown Hall, Stroud Library and the Museum in the Park.