12th May, 2023
Read all the 2022 prizewinning stories
The winners of this year’s Young Walter Scott Prize have been announced, and we’re delighted to present their stories for you to read in full here, as well as a full Roll of Honour listing the winners, runners up and highly commended in the two age categories. Stand up and take a bow, 2022 winners!
All ten stories will be published in print too, in our 2022 Anthology which will be available in June for free by contacting us and giving us your postal address.
Each story has been illustrated with a beautiful pen and ink drawing, specially commissioned from renowned book illustrator Tom Morgan-Jones. We think he’s perfectly captured the essence of each story.
The two category winners, Ellie Karlin and Rosie Brooker, will be presented with their prizes at the Borders Book Festival in June, and we’ll be reporting back on all the festivities here.
A full list of the winners is below, and you can read each of the stories by clicking on the link in the story title. We’d love to hear what you think on our social media channels @walterscottprize. Happy reading, and congratulations to all our winners!
The 2022 YWSP Roll of Honour
11 to 15 age-group
Winner: Ellie Karlin, aged 14, from Bristol
Mrs Fujita’s Living Room
Ellie says: “I chose to set my story in Japan at the end of the Second World War because I wanted to explore parts of the war the GCSE curriculum doesn’t go into depth about. I became fascinated by the terrible ethics represented by the decision that eventually ended the war but, given the extensive debates that have already taken place on this, wanted to represent the human side through the form of storytelling.”
Runners-up:
Melissa Muthama
The day hope died
Ted Whitaker
It’s the Noise
Highly commended:
Gavriella Epstein-Lightman
Scars Never Heal
Samantha Yeung
Let There Be Light
16 to 19 age group
Winner: Rosie Brooker, aged 16, from Solihull
Forever England
Rosie says: “I chose to set my piece just after the First World War because I think it is an interesting period of transition, both historically and in literature. I wanted to explore different elements of the period in conjunction with one another, rather than looking in isolation at the horrors of the war.
“I was also inspired by the story of Rupert Brooke, the poet who wrote the famous line after which I named my story: ‘If I should die, think only this of me: / That there’s some corner of a foreign field / That is forever England’. The more I read and researched around Brooke, the more flaws I found with the image – portrayed in my English lessons at school — of him as a tragic war hero; his many guises reflected the different ways in which this period can be understood, and I wanted to use this true story to enrich my fiction.”
Runners-up:
Florence Bolton
Sea-change
Atlas Weyland Eden
White Fox
Highly commended:
Sophie Davey-Adam
Sixteen String Jack
Amelie Roscoe
Troublesome
