Jury

It is with great pleasure that we present the jury for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award. Our judges are successful literary professionals who have previously judged numerous writing awards. They are passionate about new and inspiring works that demonstrate creativity and excellence.

Fiction

Alfonzo Sieveking
Founder, The Common Press

Alfonzo Sieveking is an award-winning bookshop manager who most recently helped establish The Common Press Bookshop in Shoreditch, which champions queer and intersectional literature from marginalised writers. He also founded and ran a small literary press called Ampersand Publishing.

Ansa Khan Khattak
Senior Commissioning Editor, Cornerstone

Ansa Khan Khattak currently works at Hutchinson Heinemann, known for its bestsellers, prize winners, ground-breaking voices and original stories. She has published Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Harding and acquired books by Rebecca K Reilly, Akutagawa Prize-winner Junko Takase.

Dr Marl’ene Edwin
Caribbean and Diaspora Studies, Goldsmiths

Marl’ene Edwin is Deputy Director of the Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies. Senior Fellow of HEA and Churchill Fellow, her research interests include Caribbean Languages and Oral Literature. She convenes the world’s first MA in Black British Literature and is the author of Archiving Creole Voices.

Richard Price
Poetry and Fiction Writer

Richard Price’s poetry comprises Lucky Day, Moon for Sale, and Late Gifts. His acclaimed novella, The Island, is reissued in 2026. He has a PhD on Neil M. Gunn’s novels and for ten years was Head of Contemporary British Collections at the British Library before becoming a full-time writer in 2024.

Maxine Davies
Production Editor, Mslexia

Maxine Davies is the production editor at Mslexia magazine, and is also involved with the running of the Mslexia Fiction and Poetry competitions. She’s got a degree in History and an MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature. In 2021 she was named as one of the Printing Charity’s Rising Stars.

Lucy Binnersley
Associate Editor, The London Magazine

Lucy Binnersley is a British-born editor, currently Associate Editor at The London Magazine after serving as Managing Editor from 2016-2023. With experience editing both emerging and established authors, she specializes in guiding manuscripts from draft to publication. She has also worked at Granta.

Dean Gessie
Author, Poet, Educator

Multi-award winning Dean Gessie won the Creators of Justice Literary Award in New York, and was twice selected for The Best 64 Poets by Black Mountain Press. His award winning publications include Anthropocene and goat song, short story and poetry collections from UnCollected Press, Maryland.

Sara Nisha Adams
Author and Fiction Editor

Sara Nisha Adams is a writer and editor. She has worked at Headline, Harvill Secker and as Editorial Director at Hodder & Stoughton. Her novels include The Twilight Garden and The Reading List – finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards 2021 and longlisted for the Diverse Book Awards 2022.

Eric Akoto
Founder, Litro

Eric Akoto is founder of Litro, a platform publishing new writing across UK, U.S. and beyond. He curates literary projects, supports emerging voices through Litro Represents, and leads The Sphere Initiative, a digital project for writers’ rights. His work received support from Arts Council England and NYSCA.

Poetry

Chris McCabe
Writer and Librarian

Chris McCabe works across poetry, fiction and non-fiction that have been shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and Republic of Consciousness Prize. His collection, which is titled, The Triumph of Cancer, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. He works as the Head of the National Poetry Library in London.

Astra Papachristodoulou
Poet and Associate Tutor, University of Greenwich

Astra Papachristodoulouis is currently a Lecturer of Poetry at the University of Greenwich. She is also the founder of The Poetry Kiosk, and has curated several innovative visual poetry exhibitions across the UK. She recently had her debut solo exhibition which took place at the Southbank Centre, London in 2024.

Naush Sabah
Writer, Editor & Critic

Naush Sabah is a writer, editor, critic and educator. In 2019, she co-founded Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal where she is Editor and also Publishing Director. Her writing has appeared in The Poetry Review and the TLS. She was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s 2021 Sky Arts Writers Award.

Degna Stone
Poet and Editor

Degna Stone is an award-winning poet and poetry editor. They are co-founder and former Managing Editor of  Butcher’s Dog poetry magazine, a Contributing Editor at The Rialto, and an associate artist with The Poetry Exchange. Currently, Degna is Project Manager for The Rebecca Swift Foundation.

Nasser Hussain
Author, Senior Lecturer in Literature

Nasser Hussain is a Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett University. His debut book, Boldface was published in 2014. He holds a PhD in English from the University of York, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor and a BA in English from Queen’s University.