Arts prize winners & finalists
Trinity Bouy Wharf Drawing Prize
Established in 1994, the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize is regarded as the foremost annual open exhibition dedicated to drawing in the UK. This year’s competition attracted 2621 entries by 1403 artists from 48 countries. Of these, 92 drawings by 86 artists were shortlisted for the prize and exhibited at The Bouy Store.
Yvonne Crossley, an 83-year-old Welsh artist, won the £15,000 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2026 for Octogenarian Dancer; the Student Award of £2000 was awarded to Elena Grossi for giving only good, only good when giving; and the Three Boroughs’ Award of £1000 went to Lucie Holzer for Stairway at Dusk.
Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2026
The Baillie Gifford Prize is one of the world’s most prestigious international awards for literary non-fiction and is open to books on any subject and to writers of any nationality. This year, the six shortlisted authors are Nicholas Boggs, Anand Gopal, Patrick Radden Keefe, Edmund Richardson, Matthew Sweet and Andrea Wulf. Their works were chosen from over 350 eligible books published between 1 November 2025 and 31 October 2026.
The shortlist includes two British authors: Edmund Richardson for Alexander: God, King, Man, about the life of Alexander the Great (Bloomsbury Publishing); and Matthew Sweet for The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland (Hodder & Stoughton).
The winner will be announced on 4 November with the author receiving £50,000. Last year’s winner was Australian author Helen Garner for her remarkable 800-page work of memoir How to End a Story: Collected Diaries.
New Writers Poetry Competition
Will Magee has won the first prize of £1000 for his poem Daphne in this year’s New Writers Poetry Competition. Four runners-up each received £100. They are Jiayi for Handover; Sarah Raybould for Sonata for the Arrival of Housemartins; Barnaby Wick for Sunday Fuckin Dinner; and Alistair Bamford for Driving ambulances to Ukraine.
The winners were chosen from over 700 entries.
Booker Prize
The shortlist for the 2026 Booker Prize has been announced. The six titles feature two previous winners, a previous shortlistee, and three authors new to the prize.
The six books are:
- The End of Everything by M John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail)
- The Disappearers by Marlon James, Booker Prize winner 2015 (Hamish Hamilton)
- Black Bag by Luke Kennard (John Murray)
- May We Feed the King, by Rebecca Perry (Granta)
- The Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth Strout, a three-time Booker Prize nominee (Viking)
- John of John by Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize winner 2020 (Picador)
This year’s judging panel was chaired by celebrated classicist, writer and broadcaster Mary Beard, and included poet, writer and educator Raymond Antrobus; musician, writer and broadcaster Jarvis Cocker; journalist, editor and critic Rebecca Liu; and Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist, poet and essayist Patricia Lockwood.
The winner will receive £50,000, with the other shortlisted authors each receiving £2500. The winning book will be announced on 9 November in a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London.
The Wainwright Prizes
The Wainwright Prizes are the UK’s foremost awards for nature and conservation writing. Presented annually since 2014, they showcase works that reflect the goals of its namesake Alfred Wainwright: celebrating nature and the environment, nurturing respect for the planet, and informing readers of the threats that the earth currently faces.
The Book of Birds by Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane is the 2026 Wainwright Prize Book of the Year. Otherlands: An Illustrated Journey Through Earth’s Lost Worlds by Thomas Halliday, and illustrated by Gavin Scott, is the Children’s Book of the Year. Both were awarded £2500, with winners in other categories each receiving £500.
2026 Soane Medal
Internationally acclaimed architect and educator Farshid Moussavi OBE RA is the recipient of this year’s Soane Medal. She was recognised for her outstanding contribution to the practice, history and theory of architecture.
Moussavi divides her time between running a practice in London and Paris and her professorship at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
The award will be formally presented at an event at The Royal Academy on 24 November, when Moussavi will deliver a lecture that is open to all.
Sir John Soane’s house and collection at Lincoln’s Inn Fields has been a national museum since the early 19th century. Designed by renowned architect Sir John Soane, and filled with his world-class collection of paintings, sculptures, artefacts and models, the museum is kept much as it was during his lifetime.
Opportunities for artists & creatives
The John Ruskin Prize
The John Ruskin Prize invites entries from artists, designers, craftspeople and makers, amateur or professional, based anywhere in the world. This year’s theme, ‘Not for Present Delight’, questions the role of the maker today. It asks artists what it means to create with an awareness of consequence, while also posing the challenge: must art serve a purpose beyond itself?
The Prize welcomes works in all mediums, including drawing, painting, print, sculpture, photography, textile, animation, mixed media, digital, performance and installation. Selected works will be shown in an exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London in early 2027. Four winners will share in a prize pool of £9500.
Entries close 17 November.
Pastel Society Open Call
Artists working in pastel and contemporary dry media are invited to submit their work for the Pastel Society’s Annual Exhibition in 2027. From pastel and pencil to charcoal, crayon, chalk and beyond, the exhibition will celebrate colour as one of the five essential components of contemporary painting and drawing. Artists are invited to explore how colour can unite us through a shared language of expression, celebrating the possibilities of pastel, dry, and mixed media. There are prizes and awards worth up to £5,000 and the opportunity to take part in the exhibition at Mall Galleries.
Entries close 20 November.
New Writers Novel Prize
The New Writers Novel Prize is being presented for the first time this year. The competition is run in association with The Novel Factory. Writers do not need a finished manuscript to enter, just the first 500 words of an unpublished novel or novella. The winner will receive £1000 plus Lifetime Access to The Novel Factory writing software (worth $649).
Entries close 31 October.
