We are delighted that three Blake Friedmann authors, Romalyn Ante, Janice Galloway and Kaite O’Reilly, have been elected fellows of the Royal Society of Literature.

The election took place at the RSL’s annual summer party on 12 July, where the new Fellows signed their names in the RSL Roll Book, which dates back to 1825.

Founded in 1820, the Royal Society of Literature is a charity which represents the voice of literature in the UK. To be nominated as a fellow, a writer must have published or produced two works of outstanding literary merit, and nominations must be made by two fellows or honorary fellows. This was the second and final year of the RSL Open initiative, which has seen 60 new writers from backgrounds underrepresented in UK literary culture elected to Fellowship. Readers and writers from across the UK recommended writers for nomination, who were then considered by a panel. This year the panel consisted of Monica Ali, Nick Laird, Sabrina Mahfouz, Charlotte Mendelson, Daljit Nagra, Irenosen Okojie and Chibundu Onuzo, and was chaired by Damian Barr.

Damian Barr said of the new Fellows: ‘This is a list of powerful talents and pioneering trailblazers; gifted writers of all genres who lit the way and who continue to inspire us in darker times. Their recognition is richly deserved and, for some, long overdue. The Royal Society of Literature is all the richer for these new Fellows, just as the world is for their words.’

About Romalyn Ante

Romalyn Ante was born and lived in the Philippines until she migrated to the UK when she was 16 years old. She is now based in Wolverhampton. Romalyn is a poet and works as a specialist nurse practitioner. She is a co-founding editor of harana poetry, and the first East-Asian to win the Poetry London Prize (2018) and the Manchester Poetry Prize (2017). She also won the Creative Future Literary Award 2017.

Romalyn’s debut poetry collection, ANTIEMETIC FOR HOMESICKNESS, was published by Chatto & Windus and was an Irish Times Best Poetry Book of 2020, an Observer Poetry Book of the Month and a Poetry School Poetry Book of the Year 2020. It was also a National Poetry Day UK Recommended Read and is longlisted for the Jhalak Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize.

See Romalyn’s website here

Follow Romalyn on Twitter here

About Janice Galloway

Janice Galloway was born in Ayrshire in 1955. Her first novel, THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING (Vintage), now widely regarded as a contemporary Scottish classic, was published in 1990. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, Scottish First Book, Italia Premio Acerbi and Aer Lingus Awards, and won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year. Her second novel was FOREIGN PARTS (Vintage, 1995), which won Te McVitie's Prize. CLARA (Vintage), a fictionalised account of the life of Clara Schumann, was published in 2003 and won the Saltire Book of the Year.

Janice is also the author of two works of ‘anti-memoir’: THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME (Granta, 2010), was shortlisted for The Biographer's Club First Book and won Scottish non-fiction Book of the Year; ALL MADE UP (Granta, 2011) won the SMIT Book of the Year and a Creative Scotland Award. Her latest book, JELLYFISH (Granta, 2019), is a short story collection exploring sex and sexuality, parenthood, relationships, the connections between generations, death, ambition and loss.

Visit Janice's website

About Kaite O’Reilly

Kaite O' Reilly is an award-winning playwright and poet (Peggy Ramsay Award, Manchester Evening News Best Play of 2004, International Susan Smith Blackburn Award 2009, Ted Hughes Award for New Works in Poetry 2011), a recipient of two Unlimited Commissions, part of the Cultural Olympiad for the London Olympics (for IN WATER I'M WEIGHTLESS and LEANER, FASTER, STRONGER) and a Fellow of International Research Centre ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’, Freie Universität, Berlin.

Visit Kaite's website here

Click here to read about Kaite's scriptwriting

We are delighted that both Hannah Lowe and Monique Roffey have been elected as fellows for the Royal Society of Literature. This honour comes after an extraordinary year for both writers, with Hannah winning the Costa Book of the Year Award in February for her poetry collection THE KIDS, and Monique’s novel THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH (also a Costa Book of the Year Award winner, winning in 2020) going from strength to strength, selling more than 100,000 UK copies and most recently being published by Knopf in the USA and as part of the Vintage Earth series in the UK. The novel has also been optioned for film by Dorothy Street Pictures.

Hannah and Monique became fellows in July, along with 148 other writers and supporters of literature elected between 2020 and 2022. They signed their names in the historic roll book at an event held at Battersea Arts Centre. Monique used author Jean Rhys’ pen to sign, whilst Hannah used Andrea Levy’s as ‘her writing made me want to write’.

The Royal Society of Literature is the UK’s largest charity for the advancement of literature, and to be nominated as a fellow, a writer must have published or produced two works of outstanding literary merit, and nominations must be made by two fellows or honorary fellows. Other writers made fellows this year include Michaela Coel, Russell T. Davies, Sulaiman Addonia and Lemn Sissay.

Daljit Nagra, chair of the Royal Society of Literature, said: ‘We at the RSL are a community of readers and writers coming together for the advancement of literature, bringing our multiple experiences and perspectives to bear on some of the biggest questions of our times. Fellowship isn’t just an honour bestowed to a writer by their peers; being a fellow gives you the opportunity to show what literature can do to change all our lives.

‘Our fellows inform the work we do, and our summer party is a joyous celebration of the writers who enrich our nations with the cultural wealth of their generous literature. I am delighted to be chair of an organisation that shows the extraordinary and diverse excellence of writing in the UK, and makes it possible for us to create a society we want to live in.’

Newly elected president of the Royal Society of Literature, Bernardine Evaristo, added: ‘Storytelling is at the heart of who we are as humans – it is how we understand, contextualise, mirror, examine, challenge, entertain and imagine life from multiple experiences and perspectives. We all deserve to be active and equal participants in the production and consumption of literature that is as wide-ranging as ourselves.’

About Hannah Lowe

Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. Her 2021 poetry collection, THE KIDS, won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2021. THE KIDS also won the Costa Poetry Award 2021, was shortlisted for the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize, was a Poetry Book Society Choice for Autumn 2021 and an Irish Times and Guardian poetry book of the year.

Her first book-length collection, CHICK, won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. Her second full-length collection, CHAN, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016, followed by a pamphlet, THE NEIGHBOURHOOD (Out-Spoken Press) in 2019. Her prose memoir, LONG TIME NO SEE, exploring her relationship with her half-Chinese, half-Jamaican immigrant father, was published by Periscope in 2014.

Visit Hannah’s website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

About Monique Roffey
Monique Roffey is an award-winning novelist who divides her time between Trinidad and London. HOUSE OF ASHES (Scribner UK) was shortlisted for the Costa and the BOCAS Prize. ARCHIPELAGO, winner of the OCM BOCAS prize for Caribbean Literature, was published by Scribner in the UK, Viking in the US, and translated into five languages. Her second novel THE WHITE WOMAN ON THE GREEN BICYCLE was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Encore Prize, among other accolades, and film/TV rights have been optioned. THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH won the Costa Prize as well as receiving many other prize nominations and international rights deals.

Visit Monique’s website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Praise for Hannah Lowe
‘Here is a poet with a commanding style; her voice is entirely her own, both rich and laconic.’ – Penelope Shuttle

‘Lowe’s poetry is vibrant and sensual.’ – Chloe Stopa-Hunt, Poetry Review

‘A joy to read.’ – Liz Berry

‘Always, we are in the hands of Lowe's singular, effortless voice, and reminded that all good education should be an education in class, in the legacies and histories of empire and in the self.’ – Andrew McMillan, Poetry Book Society Bulletin

Praise for Monique Roffey
‘Monique Roffey is a unique talent and most daring and versatile of writers. I never know what to expect and I’m never disappointed.’ – Bernardine Evaristo

'Monique Roffey is a writer of verve, vibrancy and compassion, and her work is always a joy to read.' – Sarah Hall

‘Monique Roffey has established herself as a fearless writer with her choices of subject and her visceral style.’ – The Guardian

‘One of our most exciting new Caribbean voices.’ – A.L. Kenn