We are delighted to announce Rebecca Jagoe and Remi Graves as the winners of the 2024 Prototype Prize.

The prize is for published or unpublished writers and artists working at the intersections of different literary and artistic forms. It was judged this year by Bhanu Kapil, Tom McCarthy and Elizabeth Price, and is a partnership between Prototype, Monitor Books and frieze magazine, awarding categories for both book-length and short-form works. 

Rebecca Jagoe won the book-length category, receiving a prize of £3,000 plus publication by Prototype, while Remi Graves won the short-form category, with a prize of £2,000 plus publication by Monitor Books. Both will have an excerpt of their work published in frieze.

The judges commented that it had been ‘a privilege to judge the inaugural Prototype Prize, and to read work by such a varied range of talented writers and artists. We were struck by the extraordinary quality of the shortlist; it is no small achievement to independently develop works of this depth and sophistication. It was extremely difficult to choose winners from these important and innovative works, but we are confident that all of these exceptional projects will find a readership.’

Rebecca Jagoe won for their manuscript Significant Others, which explores ‘intimate or bodily relationships with other-than-humans’. Jagoe is an autistic artist who works across text, performance and sculpture. Their work examines how experiences of illness, madness and gender are informed by specific Western, imperialist narratives around the ‘human’, and its relationship to language, monstrosity and animality. Their artworks have been exhibited at Goldsmiths CCA, Somerset House, and the Whitechapel Gallery. 

The judges said: ‘Jagoe’s Significant Others is a fully grown and highly original manuscript. It is a remarkable and beautiful piece of writing which forges a new language of material aesthetics to think and write beyond the human. There is a fluency and elasticity of invention here, resonating with the processes of artistic creation and encounter. Exciting, passionate and surprising.’

Remi Graves won the short-form category for coal, an experimental pamphlet that explores the life and death of Paul Downing, a black transmasculine person from Georgia, USA. A former Barbican Young Poet, Graves’ work has been commissioned by St Paul’s Cathedral, Arthouse Jersey and BBC Radio 4, and their debut pamphlet, with your chest, was published by fourteen poems in 2022.

The judges said: ‘Remi Graves’ coal is a genuine experiment – unconfined, unprecious, yet also precise. The elements, so varied in form, build a coherence of subject, tone, and attitude. Remi makes research itself the drama, inserting the complex subjectivity of the researcher (and the unreliability of the whole process) into the work. coal has the liveness of a whole practice.’

The prize has been supported by Shane Akeroyd, Sadie Coles and Emmanuel Roman, and by public funding from Arts Council England. It will run again in 2026, along with the next round of our Development Programme, which supports underrepresented and emerging writers and artists through monthly seminars with leading practitioners, and editorial development and group feedback sessions. 

2024 SHORTLISTS

BOOK-LENGTH CATEGORY:

Matthias Connor: Loose Fit
Ellen Dillon: A Whale Called Milieu
Rebecca Jagoe: Significant Others
Kate Pickering: There is a Miracle In Your Mouth
Oliver Zarandi: Body Horror

Matthias Connor was born in London and grew up in Derbyshire. He left school without any qualifications. He first discovered his cultural life of writers, artists, filmmakers and musicians through the people he met skateboarding in Manchester before moving to London in the early nineties. For as long as he can remember he has wanted to be a writer. He did this by making fanzines as a teenager before publishing a series of chapbooks. Amongst the many jobs he’s had, he’s worked as a postman, in a laundrette, in a clothes shop, in a nightclub, in a kitchen, in a video shop and as a childminder. At the age of forty he returned to education to study to be a nurse. He is interested in improving the health of the most marginalised and often most disregarded sectors in society. He lives in London with his wife and two sons. The manuscript entered for this prize is his first book.

Ellen Dillon is a writer and teacher from Limerick, Ireland. Her latest books are Fare Thee Well, Miss Carousel (HVTN Press, 2023) and tentatives (Pamenar Press, 2023). Previous books look at Irish history from the perspective of butter (Butter Intervention; Veer 2, 2022), the teaching life of Stéphane Mallarmé (Morsel May Sleep; Sublunary Editions, 2021), and Stephen Malkmus’s guitar (Sonnets to Malkmus; Sad Press, 2019).

Rebecca Jagoe is an autistic artist who works across text, performance and sculpture. Their work examines how experiences of illness, madness, and gender are informed by specific Western, imperialist narratives around the ‘human’, and its relationship to language, monstrosity, and animality. This often manifests as dialogues with other-than-humans: the ocean, a mirror, a catfish, a blue plastic arm, a deep-sea anglerfish. Jagoe’s work has been published in The Happy Hypocrite, Hotel, EROS Journal, and Artes Mundi Journal, among others. With Sharon Kivland they have edited two anthologies, ON VIOLENCE (2018) and ON CARE (2020), published by MA BIBLIOTHÉQUE. They were a Wales in Venice 10 Fellow 2022–23 and part of the Freelands Fellowship 2021–22. They have recently shown work at Chapter, Cardiff (2024), g39, Cardiff, and Site Gallery, Sheffield (all 2023), the Drawing Room, London, Mostyn, EKKM, Tallinn, and Kim?, Riga (all 2021), and Wysing Arts Centre and CCA Goldsmiths (2020).

Kate Pickering is a London-based artist, writer, and associate lecturer in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, researching the entanglements of ecological bodies and sacred sites through scholarly writing, creative-critical texts and performance. She completed an AHRC scholarship PhD at Goldsmiths examining how the immersive story-world of North America’s largest megachurch acts as a ‘total work of art’ in a broader context of white nationalism, climate crisis, End Times obsession and climate change denialism. Recent work includes a site-based performance lecture that drew on the Catholic history of the Jan van Eyck Academy and its local ecologies (Maastricht, 2023); a writing commission for Kate McMillan’s solo exhibition ‘Never at Sea’ focussing on climate change and migration at St Mary Le Strand Church (London, 2023); and the curation of ‘Ritual/Bodies’, a live performance event at St Pancras Church, exploring bodily representations within Christian tradition (London, 2024). Her writing has been published by Copy Press, Veer Books and EROS Journal amongst others. Pickering co-runs Peer Sessions, a crit group for artists, and is a trustee for mental health charity Arts Network London.

Oliver Zarandi is a writer. His first book, Soft Fruit In The Sun (Hexus Press, 2019) was said to be like ‘getting a hug from David Cronenberg’. His writing has appeared in Hotel, Hobart, iD, Diagram, Little White Lies, and more. You can follow him on X at @zarandi. 

SHORT-FORM CATEGORY:

Aisha Farr: Get-Up
Remi Graves: coal
Krystle Patel: Start with the present
Milo Thesiger-Meacham: Audible Heat

Aisha Farr is an artist and writer who works in adult education and community outreach in London. Some of her writing has appeared in Zarf, Project Self Detective, Try To Be Better and The People’s House. She also makes drawings, weavings and paintings. Aisha is currently working on a collaborative film project titled Terrormar.

Remi Graves is a London-based poet and drummer. A former Barbican Young Poet, their work has been commissioned by St Paul’s Cathedral, Arthouse Jersey and BBC Radio 4. They have led courses at The Poetry School and facilitate in schools and community spaces around London. Remi was longlisted for the Merky Books New Writers’ Prize in 2020 and their debut pamphlet, with your chest, was published by fourteen poems in 2022.

Krystle Patel is a London-based Asian artist born in Texas. She uses writing, sound and textile to create events and site-specific film installations that interrogate the construction and value of relationships through language. She gained a degree in Dentistry and has recently completed her MFA at Goldsmiths University. Krystle was selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries, the Goldsmiths Alumni commission, has had work acquired for the Government Art Collection and was the artist in residence at the Institute of Neurology at UCL.

Milo Thesiger-Meacham is an artist, composer, performer and broadcaster. He has a first-class honours degree in Sound Arts and is artistic director of the community arts radio stations Resonance FM and Resonance Extra. In 2022 he was commissioned by the European Capital of Culture to create Body Edit Mind, a 22-hour audio work made using 6,000 pieces of found material. He has worked on solo and group projects for Tate Modern, The V&A Museum, the Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow, London and Paris Fashion Weeks, Radiophrenia, Cafe Oto, Iklectik, Tenement Press, the European Poetry Festival, Waste Paper Opera, Lewisham Arthouse, Radio Revolten, IvyNODE & Tierra Vivente, Echoraeume and more.

YOU CAN READ SYNOPSES AND EXTRACTS OF ALL OF THE SHORTLISTED WORKS BELOW:

Information about the prize:

Key Dates
Submissions: 1 January – 1 February
Shortlist announced: June 2024
Winners announced: 12 September 2024
Publication: Spring 2025

Judges
Bhanu Kapil
Tom McCarthy
Elizabeth Price

Prizes
£3,000: book-length publication
£2,000: short form publication

The Prototype Prize is a new, biennial prize for published or unpublished writers and artists working at the intersections of different literary and artistic forms. The prize, which is open only to writers or artists resident in the UK or Ireland, awards £3,000 plus publication by Prototype to the best book-length project, and a second prize of £2,000 plus publication by Monitor Books to the best short-form work. Both prize-winners will also have an excerpt of their work published by frieze. The judges for the inaugural prize are Bhanu Kapil, Tom McCarthy and Elizabeth Price, who will work alongside an editorial board from the publishers. 

Fiction, poetry and non-fiction prose are all eligible, with no restrictions on style, form or subject-matter, with interdisciplinary approaches particularly welcomed. We welcome submissions of work that interrogates the boundaries of established formal, narrative and genre conventions. We request text-based work that can appear on the printed page, and are also interested in work that might be extended into other media, such as film, audio, exhibition or performance. Submissions are open to individuals and collaborative projects (see terms & conditions below).

The guidelines of the prize, and the type of work that is eligible, are intentionally open and imprecise, to reflect the wide-ranging possibilities of the kind of work we are interested in. A look across our back catalogues, and the work of our carefully chosen judges, is perhaps the most helpful guide.

A shortlist will be chosen by the judges and announced in June 2024, and the two winners announced at an event at the South London Gallery in September 2024, with both books published in spring 2025.

As a publisher committed to providing a home for hybrid and free-form contemporary works that often resist definition, we have first-hand experience of the challenges of supporting writing that sits between traditional publishing categories. We also know that there are many artists and writers working on exceptional projects that deserve publication, and the Prototype Prize aims to find and give a platform to the best examples of this work, and to offer its authors support through the completion of the writing process, to the editorial, design and production, and publicity stages. 

Submissions will initially be read by an editorial board from Prototype and Monitor Books, with a longlist passed to the judges, from which the shortlist and winners will be selected. 

The Prototype Prize is being run in conjunction with an adjacent development programme in partnership with New Writing North, supporting under-represented and emerging writers and artists through a 6-month long scheme consisting of monthly seminars with leading practitioners, and editorial development and group feedback sessions, applications for which have now closed. Applicants to the development programme are also welcome to apply to the prize.

The Prototype Prize is supported by Shane Akeroyd, Sadie Coles and Emmanuel Roman, and by public funding from Arts Council England.