Lifestyle

Swindon writer of traveller heritage amongst winners of Creative Future Writers' Award

By Jessica Durston - 13 September 2022

Arts and CultureCommunity

Karen Downs-Barton

Swindon resident Karen Downs-Barton is one of the winners of the Creative Future Writers' Award - an award to recognise under-represented writers.

Migration, belonging, human connections, resilience and lived experiences of autism and gun crime are amongst the themes explored by the twelve winning entries of the Creative Future Writers' Award (CFWA).

Karen Downs-Barton is an award-winning Anglo-Romani writer and workshop facilitator. After an early life travelling from place to place, including spending time in state childcare, she has put down roots in Swindon.

Karen is also PhD candidate at Kings College London writing a magic realist poetry collection exploring identity and minority languages in entertainment, and sex industry communities.

Karen won the 2021 Cosmo Davenport-Hines poetry award and her poems have appeared in Tears in the Fence, Rattle, Ink Sweat and Tears; and the North amongst others. This year, she has won the Silver Award from the Creative Future Writers' Poetry category.

The full list of the 2022 Creative Future Writers' Award winners are as follows:

Poetry:

Platinum - 'To Love and Be Loved as a Language Primer' by Leah Mae Barcenilla

Gold - 'From Dr Kanner's Office' by Helen Price

Silver - 'Framed by Woodgrain' by Karen Downs-Barton

Bronze - 'A Glossary of Artillery Terms' by Nnadi Samuel

Highly Commended - 'there is nothing like that black voice!' by Oluwaseun Olayiwola

Commended - 'I Wish We'd Won the Miner' Strike' by Jay Farley

Prose:

Platinum - 'Flibbertigibbet' by Yvonne McLeod
Gold - 'The Kam Sun' by Hannah Caitlyn Lee
Silver - 'Southport' by K. Devan
Bronze - 'Fledglings' by Alex Joynes
Highly Commended - 'Twenty-four Answers to the Life in the U.K. Citizenship Exam' by Anne
Elicaño-Shields
Commended - 'FISH' by Olivia Mark

With a mission to make publishing more diverse and representative of the world, the CFWA says it has a successful track record in discovering and nurturing talented new underrepresented writers who traditionally lack opportunities due to mental health issues, disability, identity, health or social circumstance.

Previous winners, such as Kirsty Capes whose novel 'Careless' was longlisted for the 2022 Women's Prize, have gone on to secure agent representation, publication, and to win prestigious literary prizes.

Now in its ninth year, the competition attracted a record number of entries, with almost 1,400 unpublished writers from around the UK submitting their work, and a quarter of the winners having never entered a competition before.

This year also saw a huge increase in entries from writers identifying as LGBTQIA+.

More information about the Creative Future Writers' Award can be found at https://www.creativefuture.org.uk/for-writers/creative-future-writers-award/