Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize Launch

When: Thursday, February 12, 2026, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Where: BLOC, ArtsOne, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End

This event is to inaugurate the association of the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize – formerly the Republic of Consciousness Prize – with the School of the Arts at QMUL.

Organised by the School of the Arts alongside the Republic of Consciousness Foundation.
This event is to inaugurate the association of the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize – formerly the Republic of Consciousness Prize – with the School of the Arts at QMUL.
Now in its tenth year, the prize has had a significant impact in an evolving publishing landscape in the UK and beyond. Prize founder Neil Griffiths will discuss the differences between small presses and the big houses when it comes to choosing a writing life, and the crucial role of the prize in a literary culture tending towards homogeneity with Editor and Publishing Director of Wasafiri magazine and 2025 International Booker Prize judge Sana Goyal, award-winning novelist Isabel Waidner, and Nisha Ramayya, a poet and academic with substantive experience in grassroots publishing cultures.
The longlist of this year's prize will be announced as part of the event.
The conversation will be followed by a drinks reception.
When: 5-7pm. 12 February 2026
Where: BLOC Cinema, Queen Mary University of London

Neil Griffiths is an award winner novelist, founder of Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses, now the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize and co-founder small press Weatherglass Books.

Sana Goyal is the Editor and Publishing Director of Wasafiri. She has an MA in Postcolonial Studies and a PhD in literary prizes from SOAS, University of London and has experience chairing book events and working with small arts organisations. Her reviews have appeared in The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Vogue India, and elsewhere. She was a judge for the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize, and, most recently, the 2025 International Booker Prize.

Nisha Ramayya works across poetry, criticism, and collaborative performance, and teaches creative writing. She’s the author of two poetry collections, States of the Body Produced by Love (Ignota 2019; reissued by Spiral House Editions in 2025) and Fantasia (Granta, 2024), as well as the co-authored pamphlets Threads and Siblings, among other publications.

Isabel Waidner is the author of five novels – including Sterling Karat Gold, which won the Goldsmiths Prize and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and Corey Fah Does Social Mobility which was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. They teach in the School of the Arts at Queen Mary University of London.