Fiction Prize judges
Judges panel
Daisy Goodwin
Writer and TV producer Daisy Goodwin will be chairing the 2024 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize judging panel.
After reading history at Cambridge, Daisy Goodwin went to Columbia Film School as a Harkness Fellow. Daisy worked in TV for 20 years and created a number of groundbreaking formats including Grand Designs - now in its 24th year. Alongside her TV work, Daisy has written a memoir, Silver River and four novels: My Last Duchess (UK)/The American Heiress (US) and The Fortune Hunter, which were both New York Times bestsellers, Victoria – inspired by the 8-part TV series she wrote about the early life of Queen Victoria for ITV and WGBH Masterpiece Theatre – and the forthcoming Diva (2024), based on the life and legend of Maria Callas.
Daisy has also compiled nine poetry anthologies including 101 Poems that Could Save your Life and 100 Poems to See You Through.
Jackie Ashley
Jackie Ashley is Chair of the National Brain Appeal, a trustee of the Hansard Society and an ambassador for the Carers Trust. She was Lucy Cavendish College’s 8th President (2015-2018). She is also a member of the Royal Television Society news and current affairs awards committee and sits on two committees at the Biomedical Research Council at University College Hospital London (UCLH). Jackie spent more than 30 years as a journalist and broadcaster and her roles have included columnist with the Guardian, Political Editor at the New Statesman, newsreader on Newsnight, political correspondent with ITN, Channel 4 politics producer, presenter of several political programmes on BBC2 and ITV, and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Week in Westminster’. Alongside her career, Jackie has campaigned on issues like equal pay, carers' rights and the NHS.
Tim Bates
Tim Bates is the Head of the Books Department & Literary Agent at Peters Fraser and Dunlop. He joined PFD after being an agent with Pollinger Limited for nearly 10 years. Before becoming an agent, he worked in various positions in publishing, including at Penguin Books, where he was Commissioning Editor for Penguin Classics. Tim represents a wide range of authors and is particularly interested in pop culture, narrative and serious non-fiction, food-writing, nature and the outdoors, sport and commercial non-fiction, and fiction of all forms.
Cathy Moore
Cathy Moore is the Founder, CEO and Artistic Director of the Cambridge Literary Festival (CLF), University of Cambridge. CFL begun as a one-woman passion project, as Cathy's idea for it was sparked by her love of literature, and willingness to share it with others, while working at Waterstones after moving to Cambridge with her young family.
Gillian Stern
Gillian Stern is an editor of literary and commercial fiction, who after 15 years of commissioning books in the social sciences, discovered a debut novel that went on to win the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Richard and Judy Summer Reads of Summer Reads. Passionate about fiction and experienced in spotting and editing bestsellers, Gillian is also a successful ghostwriter, having written ten memoirs to date. She works on a freelance basis as a structural editor for several publishers including Bloomsbury, Orion, Hodder and Penguin and critiques and edits for many leading literary agencies including Curtis Brown, Conville & Walsh, PFD, RCW and Aitken Alexander. She also mentors writers sent to her by agents, publishers and word-of-mouth recommendations and often goes on to place debut, or unrepresented, authors with agents. @gillybethstern.
Phoebe Morgan
Phoebe Morgan is the Crime and Thriller Publisher at Hodder and Stoughton, and the author of five thrillers published by HQ. In 2018, she was awarded a Trailblazer Award for her work as an editor, and in 2021, she was awarded the Bookseller Shooting Star award for services to the publishing industry. In 2022 she was shortlisted for Editor of the Year at the British Book Awards. She studied English at Leeds University after growing up in Suffolk, and she began her publishing career working in non-fiction at Octopus Books. She previously worked at HarperCollins, and her recent publications include the #2 Sunday Times and international global bestseller Girl A by Abigail Dean, and #5 Sunday Times bestseller The Chalet by Catherine Cooper as well as #1 New York Times bestsellers Stacey Abrams and Ashley Flowers. She has also worked with bestselling authors including C.L. Taylor, Jane Shemilt, Melanie Blake, Cara Hunter and many more. Her own books have sold over 225,000 copies and been translated into 10 languages. Phoebe is passionate about finding new voices in fiction and helping brilliant writers reach wide audiences. She lives in London and you can follow her on Twitter @Phoebe_A_Morgan, Instagram @phoebeannmorgan, Facebook @PhoebeMorganAuthor or find her blog about publishing and writing at www.phoebemorganauthor.com.
Dr Lindsey Traub
Dr Lindsey Traub is an Emeritus Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, having previously been both College Lecturer in English and Vice-President. Addicted to fiction since childhood, she has spent her working life thinking, talking and writing about it – with a particular interest in 19th Century American women writers who penned the very first ‘bestsellers’.
Dr Isobel Maddison
Dr Isobel Maddison is a Fellow Emerita of Lucy Cavendish College where she was College Lecturer and Director of Studies in English (2007-2021), as well as being Vice-President from 2013-2019. She has published widely on writers including Katherine Mansfield, Dorothy Richardson, George Bernard Shaw, Max Beerbohm, Eric Ambler and Agatha Christie. She works primarily on the connections between modernism and popular literature and has spent many years researching and writing about Elizabeth von Arnim, an author of best-selling fiction and a frequent Book-of-the-Month choice in her heyday. Isobel is also an advisor to the Lucy Writers Platform.