Winston Graham Prize: Introducing the 2025 judging panel

Each year we rely on a brilliant group of volunteer readers to whittle submitted historical novels down to a shortlist, but the final say rests with the expert judges.

Following the prize’s successful relaunch in 2024, we’re thrilled to have yet another discerning line-up of authors, academics and critics joining us as judges. The competition amongst submissions is rumoured to be incredibly tough this year, so we’ll be relying on their collective experience!

Chair of the Judges, Charlotte Hobson, commented: “We’re excited this year to see big names among the entries, as well as some hugely promising debut novels. This all bodes well for a scintillating shortlist, which we’ll be revealing at the end of March.”

We’ll also be announcing details of a short story competition for young writers soon, but in the meantime why not get to know our judges?

Francis Spufford

Francis Spufford

The son of a social historian and an economic historian, Spufford began his career as a non-fiction writer. Since Golden Hill came out in 2016 he has been a novelist, with a special interest in history, and in storytelling where place plays an important role. Golden Hill – set in New York in 1746 – won the Costa Book Award for Best Debut Novel and two other prizes. Light Perpetual – set in London between 1944 and 2009 – was longlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent book is Cahokia Jazz, a crime novel set in 1922, in an American city that never quite existed.

Spufford teaches creative writing at Goldsmiths College in London, lives just outside Cambridge, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Lamorna Ash

Lamorna Ash

Lamorna Ash is a writer and editor, who traces her Cornish connections back through her mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Her first book, Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Town, won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2021 and was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Her second book, on the contemporary landscape of Christianity in Britain, will be coming out with Bloomsbury in 2025.

Ash will be judging the short story competition for young writers – a new element of the Winston Graham Historical Fiction Prize for 2025.

Peggotty Graham

Peggotty Graham

Graham is a multi-faceted academic, and currently an Advisory Council member of Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra. She is a Former Dean and Director of Social Sciences and Council member of the Open University, and a Former Trustee of the Open College of the Arts.

As Winston Graham’s daughter-in-law, Peggotty Graham provides us with a tangible link with the prize’s benefactor himself and, as Literary Executor for the Winston Graham Estate, she is instrumental in perpetuating the author’s legacy.

Colin Midson

Colin Midson

Midson began his career in books as a publicist at Bloomsbury, before working as a commissioning editor at Simon & Schuster. He set up his own publishing consultancy, Bookshaped, in 2013.

A familiar face at literary events in Cornwall, Midson was Creative Director at the Port Eliot Festival and subsequently launched the Falmouth Book Festival in 2021. He programmes the Charleston Festival and the literary programme at Rock Oyster Festival, is the creative producer-in-residence at the School of Communications, Falmouth University, and a trustee of the The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society.

Charlotte Hobson

Charlotte Hobson

Chair of the judges Charlotte Hobson is author of Black Earth City, a memoir of a year spent living in early post-Soviet Russia, which won the Somerset Maugham Award. Hobson’s second book, The Vanishing Futurist, was a historical novel and shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.

Hobson lives in Cornwall where she divides her time between writing and translating (she is a fluent Russian speaker). She was instrumental in relaunching the Winston Graham Historical Fiction Prize in 2024, and continues to devote countless hours to running the annual literary competition.

Follow us on social media for updates and the shortlist announcement, or join the museum’s mailing list for #WGHPrize news direct to your in-box.