KATY MASSEY wins crime writing prize

Congratulations to Katy Massey for winning the ILP John Creasey First Novel Dagger for her novel All Us Sinners. Published in 2024, All Us Sinners is set in Leeds in 1977, at a time when sex workers are being murdered by a serial killer they are calling the 'Ripper'.

The judges described All Us Sinners as ‘vivid and brutally honest, an important and bold take on the Yorkshire Ripper murders told with passion and respect from the point of view of the women who were never heard’.

Katy teaches on our Life Writing Programme and is also the author of a memoir Are we Home Yet? about her relationship with her mother, which was shortlisted for both the Jhalak Prize and Portico Prize. She also edited Tangled Roots: True Life Stories about Mixed-Race Britain and Who Are We Now? a collection of first-person experiences of the 2016 Brexit referendum. She completed her PhD on memoir and autobiography at Newcastle University. 

Find out more about Katy’s writing journey and if you’re interested in life writing, why not sign up for a taster session for the Life Writing Programme which takes place online on 19 September?