The winner of the 2022 Barbellion Prize is Letty McHugh for her Book of Hours: An Almanac for The Seasons of The Soul (Self-published, with support from Disability Arts Online). Letty McHugh is an artist and writer based in West Yorkshire, an Associate Artist with Disability Arts Online and a Fellow with Dada Fest International.

For winning The Barbellion Prize 2022, Letty McHugh will receive £1000 and a custom-made Barbellion Prize trophy. 

Judges comments:

Lynn Buckle on the shortlisted prize entries: “We always knew it would be challenging to pick a winner from such a strong list of publications. We were primarily looking for great writing but were also afforded some great insights into disability issues such as assistive technology, acquired disability, and the struggle for self-acceptance in Harry Parker’s Hybrid Humans. Lauren Foley showed us that we are free to write outside of these boundaries in her snappy, brilliant short story collection Polluted Sex. And Claire Oshetsky’s wonderfully dark and humorous novel Chouette reimagined difference in entirely new ways. To select a self-published book as winner is a radical act, indicating the important role this international literary prize plays in highlighting work by authors whose journey towards publication is inherently more difficult due to chronic illness or disability. It is not just health, but systemic barriers which pose limitations on such writers. I sincerely hope to see Book of Hours traditionally published so that it may reach wider audiences, that readers may be rewarded by Letty McHugh’s beautiful writing and unique contemplations. She writes with intellectual rigour, with curiosity, and hope. She writes of our struggles and joys while interrogating the intersections between disability, suffering, and faith. Book of Hours is a small gem of a book with huge power.”

Ray Davis on Book of Hours: “… absurdly ambitious — but also disarmingly self-deprecating, plain-spoken in matters of pain and death, as pretty as a pebble beach, and a unique response to the collision of global pandemic and chronic illness. It was a delightful surprise for us, and in the end we hope to extend the surprise.”

Emmeline Burdett: “… It’s been a real privilege to read all these different texts. In their different ways, they all reclaim disability and chronic illness as legitimate facets of human experience, and thus they are all extremely valuable… Book of Hours needs and deserves a traditional publisher, so that the beauty of McHugh’s writing, and her ideas about chronic illness, may be appreciated as widely as possible.”

The winner of The Barbellion Prize for 2021 is What Willow Says (Époque Press) by Lynn Buckle. What Willow Says is a powerful story of change and acceptance, as a deaf child and her grandmother experiment with the lyrical beauty of sign language through their love of trees, set to a backdrop of myths, legends, and ancient bogs.

Judges comments:

Eleanor Franzén: “What Willow Says is undeniably brilliant. Potentially both disorienting and reorienting to a non-Deaf audience, which is really what I think the best writing about all sorts of experience ought to be.”

Karl Knights: “Reading the entries for the Barbellion Prize made one thing absolutely clear – disability literature has never been more vibrant and searchingly alive as it is now.”

Jake Goldsmith: “We are delighted to award the prize to Lynn Buckle’s What Willow Says. There was a stellar shortlist this year – it’s a common thing to say, but picking a winner is hard. In future years, when we have the capacity to do so, it is our intention to award all shortlisted authors a prize, with the trophy going to the winner – first among equals.”

The Winner of The Barbellion Prize in 2020 is Riva Lehrer for her book Golem Girl: A Memoir (One World/Virago). ​In choosing the winner by renowned artist and writer Riva Lehrer, the judges agreed this is a brilliant social account of the history of disability, worthy of all its praise, and an estimable celebration of art and disabled life. With the author’s powerful portraits included throughout, Golem Girl takes its readers into Riva Lehrer’s experiences as an artist born with disabilities into a world that is challenged by difference.

​Speaking from her home in Chicago, Lehrer says: “I woke up this morning and learned that my memoir, Golem Girl, had won The Barbellion Prize. What an appropriate time to hear the results of the award, with the dawn of a new era. The Barbellion Prize is helping inaugurate a new era for Disability Culture; one in which we're not shoved to the margins of 'Specialdom', but take our place among our cultural peers, and to create a more equal world through art. Thank you so much for choosing Golem Girl as the debut representative of your vision.”

Riva Lehrer is an artist, writer, and curator whose work focuses on issues of physical identity and the socially challenged body. She is best known for representations of people with impairments, and those whose sexuality or gender identity have long been stigmatised. A long-time faculty member of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Riva Lehrer is currently an instructor in medical humanities at Northwestern University. https://www.rivalehrerart.com/