On International Crow and Raven Day 2024, Lewes FC can announce the winner of our writing competition The Rooker Prize! Lewes resident, James Ellis, who has written and crowdfunded two novels of his own, is now ‘absolutely thrilled’ to win the football club’s annual competition, sponsored by award-winning music podcast The Rockonteurs and publishers Hachette UK.

Lewes FC – owned by over 2,500 worldwide community shareholders and rising – has brought democracy to the running of a football club. The Rooker Prize seeks to democratise writing competitions by welcoming entries of just the first 250 words of a novel of any literary genre.

James’ opening to ‘Fizz’ was judged by a panel, including Orion Books’ publisher Emad Akhtar, children’s author Georgia Byng, women’s football writer Suzy Wrack, author Mark Crick, and Lewes FC’s Karen Dobres, to be ‘vivid, well-structured and engaging’, ‘nicely observant’, and displaying ‘sophisticated humour’, leaving the judges’ keen to know more about the character of Kale Adams’.

The club presented James with the prize’s hand-crafted oak trophy, especially made by local carver Neil Turner, on Saturday 27^th April – International Crow and Raven Appreciation Day.

Watch the presentation.

Famously nicknamed ‘The Rooks’ – after both the town’s castle and the birds which nest around home ground The Dripping pan – Lewes FC is 100% socially-owned and makes the link between football and culture in many ways, seeking to reach out and include the whole community in its endeavours.

James said: ‘I am absolutely thrilled. It’s fantastic news; not only to have won but to have had the opportunity to enter. Community initiatives like the Rooker Prize are an essential lifeline to writers, giving oxygen to their work, helping to keep the dream alive. I’m buzzing.’

The writer now wins a coveted session with an expert editor at Hachette UK in London for feedback and advice.

James also wins £250 for a charity of his choice and has chosen Shooting Star Children’s Hospice. ‘I used to volunteer for them as a kitchen porter, and was later an ambassador. They receive no government funding at all and make an enormous difference to the children’s and their parents’ lives. https://www.shootingstar.org.uk/.’

Categories: Writerly Things