Writer development programme for unpublished and unagented non-fiction writers returns for a second year.
Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards
- Programme for disabled and/or global majority writers to develop book proposals on health and being human.
- Three book deals so far: Rageshri Dhairyawan’s ‘Unheard’, Masud Husain’s ‘Our Brains, Our Selves’ and Aimee Cliff’s ‘How to Read Minds’.
- Judged by Kerry Hudson, Micha Frazer-Carroll and Eli Keren.
- Includes a £2,000 bursary, mentoring, masterclasses, travel and access fund, and opportunity to be published by Wellcome Collection.
- Applications will run from 25 February 2026 to 8 April 2026, with programme activity from September 2026 to June 2027.
- Details on how to apply at: https://www.londonwriterscentre.org.uk/project/wellcome-collection-non-fiction-awards/.
London Writers Centre and Wellcome Collection are delighted to announce the second year of the Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards, following a successful pilot in 2022 and first full year in 2025. The project aims to find and support writers from underrepresented groups, who have a big idea for a non-fiction book for general readers, that engages with the themes of health and being human.
Applications will open on 25 February to UK-based unpublished and unagented writers over the age of 18, who identify as disabled and/or global majority. Up to six writers will be selected for a nine-month development programme to expand their non-fiction ideas to full-length book proposals. Applications will close at 5pm on Wednesday 8 April 2026.
This year’s Awards will be judged by Sunday Times bestselling author Kerry Hudson, Micha Frazer-Carroll, author of ‘Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health’, and Eli Keren, literary agent at the Curious Minds Agency. The programme will offer each writer a £2,000 bursary, mentoring with an author, masterclasses on writing non-fiction, insight and industry days and the opportunity to meet with agents. In addition, there will be a public programme of masterclasses and panel events to offer a wider range of support to aspiring non-fiction writers.
Each writer will also be offered one-to-one sessions with Wellcome Collection’s publishing team, research specialists and Stories editorial teams. In addition, aspiring writers can enjoy access to Wellcome Collection’s Library, a free resource with thousands of books, archives and manuscripts exploring personal and cultural relationships with health and medicine. Wellcome Collection will have first refusal on the projects.
Kerry Hudson said: “In a time when we need art more than ever, this collaboration between London Writers Centre and Wellcome Collection enables our most talented emerging writers to evoke different perspectives and insights about our society. The programme is immersive, comprehensive and truly the best ladder you could give to any writer and I'm deeply proud to be a part of supporting new writing from the margins and to support London Writers Centre once again.”
Micha Frazer-Carroll said: “I'm very excited to be judging this year's Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards. We need more underrepresented voices shaping narratives on health, but too many currently face barriers to access in the publishing industry. I'm keen to read interventions that feel unexpected, either in their subject, their tone or their approach to storytelling.”
Eli Keren said: “I'm hugely excited to be working with the Wellcome Collection and London Writers Centre teams on this prize – expert-led non-fiction that helps us all to understand the lives we lead and the bodies we inhabit has never been more important and I'm looking forward to discovering some essential new voices and making sure they're heard.”
Ruth Harrison, Director of London Writers Centre said: “We’re delighted to be working again with Wellcome Collection on the hugely successful Awards programme which is making a difference to the range of voices we get to hear and read alongside opening up access to non-fiction writing through its public programme. Now, more than ever, we need to be creating opportunities for writers from underrepresented communities to develop their stories and to get their work out into the world.”
Fran Barrie, Publisher at Wellcome Collection said: “We’re excited to run this programme again this year, to support a new cohort of writers with a big idea on health and being human. Particularly following the successes of 2025 – with all six awardees securing offers of representation in the autumn, and Masud Husain’s brilliant win of the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize with ‘Our Brains, Our Selves’. We can’t wait to be challenged, surprised and inspired by the entries that come in.”
Notes to editors
The Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards aims to increase the diversity of writers actively writing a non-fiction book that touches on health and being human. Applications will be open to writers who identify as:
- disabled* and/or people of the global majority**
- unpublished or have not published or self-published a non-fiction book
- unagented
- aged 18+
- a full-time resident in the UK
*We use the social model of disability, which says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference. We understand disability to include those who are deaf, neurodivergent, and those with mental health and chronic health conditions.
**‘Global majority’ refers to people who are Black, Asian, Indigenous, dual-heritage, and/or have been previously referred to as ‘ethnic minorities’. We use ‘people of the global majority’ since this represents over 80% of the world’s population.
There will be a free BSL interpreted online seminar with a Q&A for people interested in applying on Monday 2 March, 7pm-8pm.
For further information, please visit the London Writers Centre's website or contact:
Bobby NayyarProgramme manager at Spread the Word
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How we define non-fiction about health and being human
To be eligible for the programme, your proposed book project should have a central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health, illness, or identity. This can cover many genres of writing – including science, medicine, memoir, social or cultural history, essay or polemic. Examples published under the Wellcome Collection imprint include ‘To Exist As I Am’ by Grace Spence Green, ‘Disobedient Bodies’ by Emma Dabiri, ‘Nine Minds’ by Daniel Tammet, ‘Divided’ by Annabel Sowemimo, and ‘Being Mortal’ by Atul Gawande.
At some point, health, illness and medicine touch all our lives. Writing that finds stories in those moments adds new meaning to what it means to be human. The subjects these projects grapple with might include but not be limited to: the climate crisis, mental health, physical illness, health equity, the body, infection, pain, memory, identity, social histories, medical justice, and decolonising health. In keeping with its vision and goals, the Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards aim to change whose stories and work is published in the UK.
About London Writers Centre
London Writers Centre (formerly Spread the Word) is London’s literature development agency, a charity and an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. We create opportunities for storytellers, creatives and readers to change the conversations we have and reimagine the world we live in by running inclusive creative writing programmes, offering practical ways for writers to get their work into the world, discovering Londoners who love words, and nurturing those who want to write, read and share stories. We initiate change-making research including Rethinking ‘Diversity’ in Publishing (2020) and Access to Literature (2022) and develop programmes for writers that have equity and social justice at their heart. Our work includes: London Writers Awards, Wellcome Collection Non-Fiction Awards, CRIPtic x London Writers Centre Salon, Young Writers Collective, Deptford Literature Festival, and the campaign to make Lewisham the UK’s first ever Borough of Literature.
www.londonwriterscentre.org.uk
About Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library. We believe everyone’s experience of health matters. Through our collections, exhibitions and events, in books and online, we explore the past, present and future of health.
You can find us near Euston station in London and at wellcomecollection.org. Our exhibitions and events are always free. You can use our library and view items from our collections free of charge too – you may just need to book in advance.
Wellcome Collection opened in 2007. We care for many thousands of items relating to health, medicine and human experience, including rare books, artworks, films and videos, personal archives, and objects. We’re part of Wellcome, a charitable foundation supporting science to help build a healthier future for everyone.
At Wellcome Collection we are committed to embedding Access, Diversity and Inclusion into every aspect of our work, and reduce barriers for deaf, disabled, neurodivergent and people of the global majority. To read more about Wellcome’s inclusion strategy, visit https://wellcome.org/who-we-are/diversity-and-inclusion/strategy.
About the Judges
Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Her first novel, ‘Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma’ (Chatto & Windus), was published in July 2012 and was shortlisted for eight literary prizes, including the Guardian First Book Award and Green Carnation Prize, and won Scottish First Book of the Year. Her second novel, ‘Thirst’, was published by Chatto & Windus in July 2014 before being shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize. Her first work of nonfiction, ‘Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns’ (Chatto & Windus, 2019) became a Sunday Times bestseller and was chosen by BBC Radio 4 as their Book of the Week, by the Guardian and Spectator as a Book of the Year, and by Stylist as a Book of the Decade. A follow-up, ‘Newborn: Running Away, Breaking with the Past, Building a New Family’, was published by Chatto & Windus in February 2024. In 2020, Kerry was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Micha Frazer-Carroll is a journalist and the author of ‘Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health’. Her work appears regularly in the Guardian, the Independent and Novara Media. She specialises in disability, mental health and race, and has held positions at gal-dem, The Runnymede Trust, Healing Justice London and the National Survivor User Network.
Eli Keren is a literary agent at the Curious Minds Agency, an agency dedicated to expert-led evidence-based non-fiction, which he joined in 2024 after eight years at United Agents. Before starting his publishing career he had been a research scientist designing and synthesising novel drugs, and science books remain a particular passion of his. He mostly works with experts, academics and researchers on ideas-led books in the fields of smart science and current affairs, focussing on health and wellness, medicine and popular psychology alongside feminist and LGBTQ+ books. He enjoys books written by writers who are obsessed with a niche subject and skilled enough communicators to make others fall in love with their subject too, and is always on the lookout for books that are going to change the world for the better. In 2022 he wrote and delivered Jericho Writers’ How to Write a Proposal course, in 2023 he was elected treasurer of the UK’s Association of Authors’ Agents where he chairs the association's sub-committee on AI in publishing, and he has been a returning judge on the Bloomsbury Academic Writing Fellowship since its founding in 2023. He cooks, games and crochets.