The longlist for a new prize launched to celebrate funny women writers has been announced.
Actress and stand-up comic Helen Lederer founded the award to address a “lack of exposure” for female comedy writing.
The Comedy Women In Print Prize features 12 writers on the longlist in its inaugural year.
They include Gail Honeyman for the bestselling novel about friendship Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, alongside debut author Asia Mackay, for Killing It, about a covert agent returning to work from maternity leave.
Lederer praised the “high quality of wit” on the longlist and said that the interest in the prize was “easy proof this award was needed and that witty women authors are alive, well and writing.
“Laughing can be as baffling as it is thrilling, but we salute anyone who can make us do that with words on the page,” she said.
The shortlist for the award, whose judges include comic Katy Brand and authors Kathy Lette and Marian Keyes, will be announced in May and the winner on July 10.
The Comedy Women in Print Prize 2019 longlist:
Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Erotic Stories For Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
Faking Friends by Jane Fallon
Forging On by Catherine Robinson
Hot Mess by Lucy Vine
Killing It by Asia Mackay
Miss Blaine’s Prefect And The Golden Samovar by Olga Wojta
One In A Million by Lindsey Kelk
The Exact Opposite Of Okay by Laura Steven
The Wedding Date by Zara Stoneley
Why Mummy Swears by Gill Sims