Danielle McLaughlin has recently received some very good news. She has been named as a winner of one of the world’s richest literary awards, The Windham-Campbell Prize, alongside seven other writers. Danielle will receive $165,000!

The judges’ said: “Danielle McLaughlin’s short stories capture the beauty and brutality of human relationships, imbuing them with near-magical qualities rooted in the details of everyday life in a manner both wry and resonant.”

Reacting to the very lucrative award, Danielle said: “I am so hugely grateful to Donald Windham and Sandy Campbell for their generosity, for believing so fervently in the value of writers and writing. The award provides the kind of financial freedom that will allow me to keep working on projects that don’t make any money, but that I believe very strongly in.”

Danielle received the award for her brilliant debut short story collection, Dinosaurs on Other Planets. The Windham-Campbell Prizes were established in 2013 through a gift from novelist and memoirist Donald Windham in memory of his partner of 40 years, Sandy M. Campbell, to recognise literary achievement and provide writers working in English with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.

Prize recipients are nominated confidentially and judged anonymously. They don’t know they are being considered until they are notified of their win.

We wish Danielle continued success with her work and look forward to reading much more of it in the future.

Danielle has been shortlisted twice for the Bristol Short Story Prize, in 2012 and 2017, and published in our Volume 5 and Volume 7 anthologies by Tangent Books.