ALCS Annual Awards

The ALCS Annual Awards were held at the Goldsmiths’ Centre in Farringdon on 22 February 2024. Thank you to everyone who attended and congratulations to our worthy winners.

You can read about the winners of each below:

ALCS Educational Writers’ Award

Ruth Rendell Award for Services to Literacy

V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize

About the awards:

The ALCS Annual Awards are held each year in February, when we present the ALCS Educational Writers’ Award and the Ruth Rendell Award for Services to Literacy in association with our partners the Society of Authors and the National Literacy Trust respectively. For the first time this year, we also presented the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature.

The ALCS Educational Writers’ Award is administered by the Society of Authors and is awarded to an outstanding example of traditionally published non-fiction that stimulates and enhances learning. It is the UK’s only award for creative educational writing that encourages students to read widely and build up their understanding of a subject beyond the requirements of exam specification.

The Ruth Rendell Award for Services to Literacy was launched by the National Literacy Trust and ALCS in 2016 in memory of bestselling author Ruth Rendell, who was a powerful advocate for literacy. The award celebrates the author who has done the most to champion literacy throughout the UK over the past year.

The V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize offers £1,000 for the best unpublished short story of the year. The prize was founded by the Royal Society of Literature to commemorate the centenary of an author widely regarded as the finest English short-story writer of the 20th century. It has been supported by ALCS for over a decade. The winning entry will be published in Prospect magazine and RSL Review.

Last year’s winners:

The previous winner of the ALCS Educational Writers’ Award was What’s the T? written by Juno Dawson, with illustrations by Soofiya and published by Wren and Rook. Find out more here.

Last year’s joint winners of the Ruth Rendell Award for Services to Literacy were Dapo Adeola and Nigel Lungemuss-Ward. Find out more here.