The 2023 Bristol Short Story Prize Judging Panel from left to right: Abi Fellows, Heather Marks and Daniel Ross.
Abi Fellows is a literary agent at TGLA and works across both fiction and non-fiction, for children and adults. Before joining TGLA, Abi worked as a literary scout at Rosalind Ramsay Ltd for seven years. She has incredibly broad experience in the industry having been a literary agent at Georgina Capel Associates prior to becoming a scout and having also worked as a bookseller at Blackwell’s and on the sales team at Faber and Faber. Abi has a BA in English Literature from Bristol University and an MA in English Literature: Issues in Modern Culture from University College London. Abi’s clients include Saima Mir, Musa Okwonga, Hafsa Zayyan and Lizzie Huxley-Jones. Short story writers that Abi particularly enjoys: Carmen Maria Machado, Lauren Groff, ZZ Packer, Bolu Babalola, Golnoosh Nour.
Heather Marks is a creative producer, editor, and writer. She is part of the immersive change agency Words of Colour, and works with universities, publishers and literature organisations to create meaningful opportunities for writers of colour. From 2019 – 2022, she had the pleasure of working at the ‘tiny but mighty’ independent press and publishing studio No Bindings. She is co-editor of The Book of Bristol (Comma Press) and writes historical fiction for young adults.
Daniel Ross is the co-owner and co-founder of the independent bookshop Storysmith. Prior to a career in bookselling he worked in radio and journalism for outlets including Classic FM, BBC Music and Rolling Stone. He is the author of several non-fiction books on music, and his first novel was published in 2019. He was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship in 2022.