The shortlists for the Betty Trask, McKitterick, Tom-Gallon and Somerset Maugham awards were announced on 13 June with Man Booker nominated Fiona Mozley, 2014 Tom-Gallon award winner Benjamin Myers, Eric Gregory award winning poet Miriam Nash, Irish writers Valerie O’Riordan and Chris Connolly, and debut novelists Eli Goldstone, Omar Robert Hamilton, Masande Ntshanga and Sarah Day amongst the 22 shortlisted names.

The four prizes will be awarded at the Authors’ Awards on Thursday 19 July, with all the awards judged by authors, for authors. The event has rewarded the early works of some of today’s most prominent literary figures such as Zadie Smith, Seamus Heaney, Helen Dunmore, Hari Kunzru, Carol Ann Duffy and Mark Haddon, and the evening will see the UK’s biggest literary fund of more than £98,000 awarded to established and emerging writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are presented for a first novel by a writer under 35:

• Mussolini’s Island by Sarah Day (Tinder Press)
• All the Good Things by Clare Fisher (Viking)
• Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone (Granta)
• The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton (Faber and Faber)
• Bad Ideas/Chemicals by Lloyd Markham (Parthian)
• The Reactive by Masanda Ntshanga (Jacaranda)

Past winners include Zadie Smith, David Szalay, Hari Kunzru and Sarah Waters. Total prize and award fund is £26,250.

The McKitterick Prize is awarded to a first novel by a writer over 40:

• Darke by Rick Gekoski (Canongate Books)
• Radio Sunrise by Anietie Isong (Jacaranda)
• The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvira Carr by Frances Maynard (Pan Macmillan)
• Yes by Anne Patterson (Silvertail Books)
• The Woolgrower’s Companion by Joy Rhoades (Chatto & Windus)

Past winners include Helen Dunmore, Mark Haddon and Petinah Gappah. Total prize fund £5,250.

The ALCS-sponsored Tom-Gallon Trust Award is awarded for a short story by a writer who has had at least one short story accepted for publication:

• The Speed of Light and How it Cannot Help Us by Chris Connolly
• My Body Cannot Forget your Body by Kirsty Logan
• A Thousand Acres of English Soil by Benjamin Myers
• Livestock by Valerie O’Riordan
• It Was a Very Good Year by Gabi Reigh
• A Brief Period of Rejoicing by Jacky Taylor

Past winners include Benjamin Myers, Lucy Wood, Grace Ingoldby and Claire Harman. Total award fund £1,575.

The Somerset Maugham Awards are for published works of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by writers under 35, to enable them to enrich their work by gaining experience of foreign countries:

•  Kumukanda by Kayo Chingonyi – poetry (Chatto & Windus)
• Fortune Cookie by Jenna Clake – poetry (Eyewear Publishing)
• The Unrivalled Transcendence of Willem J. Gyle by J. D. Dixon – novel (Thistle Publishing)
• Elmet by Fiona Mozley – novel (J M Originals)
• All the Prayers in the House by Miriam Nash – poetry (Bloodaxe Books)

Past winners include Hari Kunzru, Helen Oyeyemi, Julian Barnes, Zadie Smith and Jonathan Freedland. Total prize fund £15,750.

The Authors’ Awards will be presented by Stephen Fry on Thursday 19 July at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Further awards to be presented on the evening include the Eric Gregory Award for a collection of poems by a poet under 30, the Cholmondely Award for a body of work by a poet, the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, the winner of which has already been released as Giles Tremlett for Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen (Bloomsbury) and the Travelling Scholarships awarded to British creative writers to enable them to keep in contact with writing colleagues abroad.

Further information about the Authors’ Awards can be found here.