Curtis Brown and Faber Announce the Winner of The Conversation Prize
5 March 2025
Curtis Brown and Faber are delighted to announce that Brian Thornton is the winner of The Conversation Prize 2025 for his story Convicting the Innocent, a look at the systemic barriers facing people wrongly convicted of crimes.
In October 2024, Elliot Prior at Curtis Brown and Fiona Crosby at Faber partnered with The Conversation Insights to launch a writing prize for academics. The Conversation Prize has set out to discover ‘the most promising new writers from the world of academia’ and is aimed at experts who are keen to develop a trade publishing career.
Brian’s article and book idea were shortlisted by the teams at The Conversation, Curtis Brown and Faber for their strong storytelling, exploring the failings in the legal system, and their strong use of case studies that brought colour to this subject.
The judges – Miriam Frankel, senior science editor at The Conversation UK; Priya Atwal, historian, broadcaster and community history fellow at the University of Oxford; and Alice Hunt, professor at the University of Southampton and author of Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade, 1649–1660 – said:
“The research on the current failings of the legal system would be of great interest to the general public, especially following the fallout from the Post Office scandal. The essay is well written and punchy, if shocking and unnerving. The use of case studies to tell the story works very well and makes the piece immediately emotionally gripping – with great potential to work as a non-fiction book.”
Brian is a senior lecturer and programme leader for the BA (Hons) Journalism course at the University of Winchester and a former producer for the BBC’s Newsnight. He is also one of the founders of the University of Winchester’s Criminal Justice Research Network, which specialises in issues related to miscarriages of justice, and is the founder and director of the Winchester Innocence Project.
Brian wins £1,000 and mentorship from both Faber and Curtis Brown. You can read his winning story here.
Close runners-up in the competition were Yvonne Reddick for Fire on Winter Hill and Nicholas Carter for Living Stone.
Fire on Winter Hill blended nature writing, memoir, family obsessions and the politics of climate change. It made an impression throughout the shortlisting process for both the style of the essay and thoughtfulness of the proposal, which showcased a great talent for storytelling. The judges said Fire on Winter Hill was an “affecting memoir” that “beautifully and originally explores the link between mountains and oil”.
Living Stone gave a glimpse into a world we don’t ordinarily think about – turning the story of lichens and their relationship with stone into a highly original piece of writing. The judges said: “This topic has great potential to work as a book, arguing that narrow Western scientific definitions mean lichens are ultimately understudied and undervalued.”
Curtis Brown’s Elliot Prior, who helped set up the prize, said:
“It’s been fantastic to see the breadth of topics and quality of writing from submissions for the prize. We thought there might be lots of non-fiction storytellers hiding in academia and were proved right. We hope that this competition will act as a bridge to market.”