Stacey Halls wins Women’s Prize & Good Housekeeping Futures Award through public vote

Congratulations to Stacey Halls, who has won the most public votes for the Women’s Prize and Good Housekeeping Futures programme, following a year-long campaign by the partnership.

Coinciding with Good Housekeeping’s 100th anniversary celebration, Futures was launched in January 2022 to highlight the talent of the next generation of female writers, to bring them to a wider audience and to support their careers. It was open to female writers aged 35 and under, living in the UK or Republic of Ireland, who had published at least one novel. 

The judging panel was chaired by novelist and founder director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Kate Mosse. The judges comprised Good Housekeeping editor-in-chief Gaby Huddart, Good Housekeeping books editor Joanne Finney, TV and radio broadcaster Naga Munchetty and novelist Sara Collins.

Halls is the author of three novels. Born in Lancashire, she worked as a journalist before her début, The Familiars, was published in 2019 by Zaffre. It was the bestselling début hardback novel of that year, won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards’ Début Book of the Year. 

The Foundling (Zaffre), her second novel, was also a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. Mrs England (Manilla Press), her most recent novel, is a portrait of an Edwardian marriage, and was a Waterstones Best Book of the Year, and longlisted for both the Walter Scott Prize and the Portico Prize.

Halls said: “It’s such a huge privilege to win anything that is voted for by readers, as readers are the reason we write in the first place, but to be awarded a prize of this prestige is a dream come true. I’ve long been a fan of the Women’s Prize and Good Housekeeping, and to be named as a writer of the future – particularly when I write about the past – is a real thrill. As brands they have huge respect and authority, and I can only hope some of their staying power rubs off on me.”

“Stacey Halls is a writer of great originality, great imagination and great sense of place,” Mosse said. “Atmospheric, intelligent, accessible, every novel is worth reading, then reading again and again.”

Huddart added: “In Good Housekeeping’s 100th year, we felt it was important to celebrate our past but also to look forward with excitement to the future and to encourage the next generation of women to excel in their respective spheres. That is why I was so delighted to partner with the Women’s Prize for Fiction with the Futures initiative. The shortlist bursts with brilliant writers, who have engaged and entertained the Good Housekeeping audience this year – all 10 of them deserve recognition for what they’ve achieved so far and it’ll be so exciting to see what they write next. 

“In Stacey, Good Housekeeping readers have picked a very worthy winner of this prize and I’ve no doubt she’s going to be one of the UK’s greats of writing.”