Women’s Prize LIVE names fantasy panel

Women’s Prize LIVE has turned one part of its June 10 festival into a very specific kind of reader fantasy — a celebrity book group built entirely from the prize’s own backlist. Anita Rani, Alan Davies and Jo Brand are joining writer and host Amanda Prowse for a “BYOB” session, where each guest brings a favorite book previously nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. That matters because it shifts the event away from pure promo and toward canon-building — not just “here are new books,” but “here are the older shortlisted novels people still press into friends’ hands.” ### What actually got announced? The Women’s Prize Trust published the full programme for Women’s Prize LIVE 2026, its day-long festival in Bedford Square Gardens in London. The event runs on June 10, 2026, from noon to 9 p.m., and mixes author conversations, workshops, podcast tapings, and live readings from the 2026 fiction and nonfiction shortlists. The newly detailed programme is the news here — earlier event pages named some attendees, but not the full shape of the day. ### What is this fantasy panel? It’s called an all-star fantasy book group, but basically the gimmick is simple and smart. Four recognizable readers — Amanda Prowse, Anita Rani, Alan Davies and Jo Brand — each pick a past Women’s Prize nominee and talk through why that book stuck. The “BYOB” label means Bring Your Own Book, and the hook is that every choice comes from the prize’s own history rather than the current season. ### Why does that feel different from a normal festival panel? Most literary festivals lean hard on the new-release cycle. Authors arrive with the book they need to sell right now. This panel does something else — it treats the Women’s Prize archive like a living reading list. That gives the audience something more useful than launch-week buzz: a set of tested recommendations, filtered through people with very different tastes and public personas. ### Which books and authors are in the mix? The programme page flags Hilary Mantel, Yael van der Wouden and Kate Atkinson among the writers tied to the panelists’ selections. That’s a broad spread. Mantel brings heavyweight literary prestige, Atkinson has long been one of the prize’s most admired repeat presences, and van der Wouden represents a much newer wave of acclaimed fiction around the prize ecosystem. So the panel is not just nostalgic — it deliberately mixes established giants with fresher names. ### Who else is on the day’s lineup? The wider festival is packed with familiar Women’s Prize orbit names. Vick Hope is hosting a live Bookshelfie conversation with Kathryn Stockett. There’s also a Jilly Cooper session with Felicity Blunt, Laura Wade and Katherine Parkinson, plus evening shortlist readings for both the fiction and nonfiction prizes. Earlier event materials also named Candice Carty-Williams, Thangam Debbonaire, Julia Gillard, Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Meena Kandasamy and Elle McNicoll as part of the 2026 gathering. ### Why is the Women’s Prize leaning this way? Because the trust has spent years trying to be more than a once-a-year award. The main site now frames its work around building a community of readers and championing women’s voices across fiction, nonfiction, podcasts, events and writer development. A panel built around beloved former nominees fits that strategy perfectly — it turns prize history into a social experience. ### So what’s the real takeaway? This is small news, but it’s revealing news. Women’s Prize LIVE is not just selling access to authors — it’s selling a way of reading. The fantasy panel is the clearest example of that: less red-carpet literary event, more curated group chat for people who want help deciding what deserves a place on the pile next.