Melissa Oliver-Powell’s first novel longlisted for Discoveries 2026

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Posted on Thursday 30 April 2026

Discoveries is the writer development programme of the Women's Prize, and is awarded annually from an entrant pool of thousands.

The 2026 judging panel is chaired by Kate Mosse CBE FRSL, international bestselling author and founder of the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction. This year's award is also judged by award-winning and global bestselling author Dorothy Koomson, peacebuilding practitioner and Women's Prize for Fiction shortlistee Dr Nussaibah Younis, Curtis Brown literary agent Ciara Finan, and founder and MD of Curtis Brown Creative, Anna Davis. The prize was set up in 2020 in partnership with Audible, Curtis Brown Literary Agency and Curtis Brown Creative Writing School.

Pitched as Our Wives Under the Sea meets The Lamb, Melissa's longlisted novel is a loose reimagining of the myth of Scylla as a contemporary sapphic body-horror about a woman who survives an accident at sea and finds herself changing into something strange and maybe monstrous.

Melissa has been lecturing in film and feminist theory in the Department of English and Related Literature since 2021. She has always found the passion for feminism, gender and queer studies amongst colleagues and students in English and the Centre for Women's Studies inspiring, and is now enjoying exploring these ideas through fiction alongside academic research.

For more information, click here.