We are excited to reveal the 2025 Pitch Prize longlist!

Our judge, literary agent Liza DeBlock from the Greenstone Literary Agency, found it incredibly difficult to narrow the entries down to just twenty. She told us she was blown away by the quality of the submissions, and our readers agreed: it was a challenge to whittle down the list. Many of you came extremely close, and we want to encourage you to keep going; so many entries felt almost agent-ready.

This year’s submissions featured many witches and ghosts, stories set in Scotland or during the Irish Troubles, and drug use, sometimes bestowing supernatural powers with alarming side effects.

Huge congratulations to the 20 longlisted authors:

Thank you to all who submitted and we wish you the very best with your next steps. Our winner announcement will be revealed next week — tune in to discover which authors will receive a one-to-one with Liza.

In the meantime, submissions for the 2026 First Novel Award will open in January. We look forward to reading an equally exciting range of work!