THE JUDGES 2025
BARBARA BLACK / SHORT STORIES
Barbara Black writes short and flash fiction, poetry and libretti. Her work has appeared in many publications and anthologies, including The Cincinnati Review, Geist, The Hong Kong Review and Bath Flash Fiction Award anthology 2020. Achievements include: Fiction Finalist, 2020 National Magazine Awards and Winner, 2017 Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition. Barbara was shortlisted for the 2023 Edinburgh Flash Fiction Award and won First Prize in The Plaza Prizes Microfiction Contest and Second in their Flash Fiction category. Her debut book, Music from a Strange Planet, received the 2023 Sunshine Coast Writers and Editors Society Award in Fiction, was a finalist in The Canadian Book Club Awards and won the international Wishing Shelf Book Award for Fiction. Her latest book, a recipient of the 2024 Firebird Book Award for Short Story, is Little Fortified Stories, a collection of micro and flash fiction. Barbara lives in Victoria, BC, Canada, where she gardens and loves to ride the twisties on her trusty Triumph motorcycle. She is the grand prize winner of unpublished books 2024!
KATHERINE WISEMAN / HISTORICAL NOVELS
Kate was a late developer who finally got to university at the age of 38. That gave me the courage to try to achieve my dream of writing fiction. Since then I’ve been very lucky to have had 9 books for both adults and children published in 4 languages.
I love history and am a licensed mudlark. This gives me the right to search the foreshore of the Thames in London for historical artifacts. My love of Mudlarking inspired the Mudlark Mysteries, about a group of nineteenth-century teens who mudlark to survive in a tough and uncaring society. The Hampstead Terror is the second Mudlark Mystery. It centres around an urban myth that dangerous wild pigs lived in the sewers beneath Victorian London and it features toshers – mudlarking elite who hunted for treasure in the many miles of London’s underground sewers.
ANDRIANA MINOU / POETRY
& LGBTQIA+
Andriana Minou was born in 1982 and has been living and working in London since 2004. She holds a BA in Piano Performance, an MA in Performing Arts and a PhD in Piano Performance Practice (Goldsmiths, University of London) with two Onassis Public Benefit Foundation scholarships. Her doctoral thesis was one of the first ones on the work of Greek experimental composer Jani Christou and she has presented her academic work in several conferences and symposiums, such as the 1st International Jani Christou Conference (which she also organised), the Senate House (London) and Centre Pompidou (Paris). She is a founding and active member of many ensembles, including Vladimir&Estragon Piano Duo, Oiseaux Bizarres Ensemble and Coocoolili. She has participated in a great variety of concerts, theatre and music performances, operas, films, albums as a pianist, composer, performer, writer, scriptwriter, librettist, songwriter and director in Greece, the U.K., the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, India, Norway, Bulgaria, Germany, Northern Ireland, the U.S., Portugal and more. She is also a member of DIY record label, FYTINI, with whom she has released two albums (as andrianette and delicassetten machimenai) and has also taken part in many collective projects. Since 2017, she has been curating and participating in regular cabaret nights with Coocoolili in London. Her work as a writer has been published in many anthologies and literary journals in Greece (entefktirio, eyelands, Mandragoras, poetix, chimeres and more), the U.K. (rattle journal, the paper nautilus and more) the U.S. (Typehouse, Story Brewhouse, FIVE:2:ONE, Fearsome Critters, The Liars’ League New York, Utterance, Tiny Spoon, Maintenant Dada), Germany (Sand Journal Berlin) and Canada (anti-languorous). Her first book, “Underage Noirs” was published in 2013 by Strange Days Books. In 2017 she was an invited author at the Young Writers’ Festival of Thessaloniki International Book Fair, while she has been a co-organiser and participant of Sand Festival, a literary festival on the Greek islands since 2015. Her latest book, “The Fabulous Dead”, was published by Kernpunkt Press, New York, in MAARCH, 2020. One of her most recent projects was her participation with original texts and performance in “Queer Approaches to Lena Platonos” in collaboration with members of FYTINI, an event that took place in December 2018 at the Greek National Opera. Her upcoming projects include the libretto for an opera that will be presented at the Greek National Opera as well as the texts for a music performance in Orgelpark, Amsterdam in spring 2020. www.andrianaminou.com
PATRICIA MARCHESI – CHILDREN BOOKS/ GRAPHIC NOVELS
P.H.C. Marchesi is a college English professor specializing in Shakespeare and Renaissance drama. She teaches at a liberal arts college an hour from Atlanta, GA. Her academic research into the role of trees and forests in Shakespeare’s plays led to her discovery of how precious and rare old-growth forests are, and inspired her to write Florissant. Before embarking on the young adult fantasy genre, she wrote two science fiction novels for middle grade readers, Shelby & Shauna Kitt and the Dimensional Holes and Shelby & Shauna Kitt and the Alterax Buttons, both of which were self-published and won Children’s Literary Classics gold awards. Marchesi is originally from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and has also lived in Austria and England. In the United States, she has lived in New York, Delaware, Colorado, Arizona, and (now) Georgia.
ILLINDA STEFANOVA-BRUNNER / NOVELS
Ilinda was born in Bulgaria, where she published her first books of poetry and short stories. Some won national awards and were translated and published in Ukraine, Germany, India, and Poland. ‘Parcels’ told the story of her family sending rare parcels to an uncle in the Belеne forced labour camp and another locked up in the Sofia prison for being a jazz musician – in communist Bulgaria jazz was banned and labelled ‘American propaganda.’ Her acclaimed play The Importance of Being Desirable, staged in Sofia and Vienna, was described by the English playwright Sir Roland Harwood as “… an accomplished piece of work… a dialogue snappy but never crass, and often poetic.” After moving to Australia, Ilinda won the HarperCollins/Varuna Fellowship for Manuscript Development for her Memoirs of the Red Berry Princess, which is about a traumatic childhood in a communist country. She published poetry in literary magazines and anthologies. Her short story Giving a Bath to His Mitera, published in the prestigious anthology One Story Many Brisbanes 5, drew wide media attention. Ginninderra Press published her poetry book Knockturnal Animal. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.
GREGORY PAPADOYIANNIS / SCI FI -THRILLER & SELF PUBLISHED BOOKS
Gregory Papadoyiannis graduated from the Law and Journalism Schools, studied cinema direction and worked at newspapers, magazines, radio and television, initially as a sports editor and later as a columnist and editor. At the same time, he worked as a translator of literature books in collaboration with several publishing houses and translated books by William Faulkner, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Jack London, Marc Twain etc. into Greek.
In 1991, he was awarded the national prize for young playwrights at the competition of the Ministry of Culture for his play The situations. He was awarded the second prize twice at the same competition, in 1995 and 1999. He has translated theatrical plays by authors such as David Mamet and Tennessee Williams for the purposes of performances in prestigious theatres of Athens. He has also worked as a director’s assistant at the National Theatre of Greece as well as the Theatre of Thessaly. He has been involved with the cinema as well; as a director of two short films that were screened in Greek film festivals and as a script-writer for feature and short films. He has also worked as a script-writer and director’s assistant in several television series. He currently works as a translator and editor for Strange Days Books Publishing (www.strangedaysbooks.gr ) He is co-founder and has been co-organising Sand Festival, since 2015 along with Andriana Minou.
PUBLICATIONS
– 52 eyelands, a sentimental guide through the Greek islands (2013, Strange Days Books) /- Greece: The child that never grew up, short story included in Stories for our Time, an Interactive Exhibition from LibArts London / -The city beyond the river, short story included in the anthology Future eyes of PaleHouse Magazine (2012, Los
– An excerpt from his novel “Sniff” was posted to the European Literature Network (June 2017) http://www.eurolitnetwork.com/authors-pitch-sniff-by-gregory-papadoyannis/
– His novel «The baby Jazz» released in USA from Fomite books in February 2017.
– His comic album ”Ephemera, life is short” translated into Spanish and released in Spain in 2021.
https://gregorypapadoyiannis.wordpress.com/
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THE TREES
All first prize winners of each category will receive a handmade ceramic tree, created especially for Eyelands Book Awards
Aleksandra Tryniecka (Children books 2024 with her tree prize)
EA CERAMIC STUDIO
ea produces handcrafted earthenware. We apply a modern interpretation of ancient pottery forms and ceramics. Our work has its foundation in the stories based on the functional relationship between man and objects. Each object is handcrafted as an intention to create a unique collectible piece – the perfect fusion of functionality and aesthetics.
ea ceramic studio was established by Ema Ramanskaite in 2010.
Ema Ramanskaite
Ema’s hand made work has its foundation in humour, simplicity and hand building techniques. Works stand out with multipurpose use. Influenced by the light and colours, Ema enjoys using a multicolor palette and short stories to create effect.
Aris Tabatsikos
Aris work employing a wide range of influences from historical shapes, comic books and physics. Balancing between ancient forms and contemporary materials the results are sculptural and functional ceramics. Alternative crafts and non traditional thinking are Aris perspectives for art.
https://www.eaceramicstudio.com/en/about-us/
PREVIOUS ARTIFACTS
With Kafka’s “Art needs craft more than craft needs art” as a basic principle, I strive to find the balance between pleasure and the therapeutic quality of making, creating objects and the additional achievement of making a living and acquiring recognition through it.
Everyday objects and familiar forms giving the sense of security and familiarity offer a chance for me to present my perspective, my emotion, even my compulsion, accompanying the merchant’s and artist’s worries. Trees, a symbol of power and tranquillity, of a life intense yet discreet, have always been a reference point in my journeys, real and mental – spiritual and material.
Especially the olive tree, the most prominent tree of Crete, a symbol of the struggle for endurance as well as prosperity in Cretan culture, has been a source of inspiration and a bright spot. I therefore consider trees and the olive tree in particular, a symbol equal to an author’s endeavour, inspiration and labour.
Costis Malousaris
- hand build ceramic items, aprox. 20 cm height and 6-8 cm diameter. Stoneware clay, hand painted with engobe colors and twice in the kiln at 1100c.
Eyelands Book Awards 