Meet the Final Panel Judges of The Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition 2025
- Elizabeth van der Valk
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
The Final Panel of the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition 2025 brings together an extraordinary assembly of literary luminaries, cultural leaders, and creative voices from across the Commonwealth. Leading this distinguished panel are our two eminent Chairs, Sir Ben Okri OBE and Imtiaz Dharker, whose vision and artistry embody the spirit of storytelling, followed by a diverse group of esteemed writers, scholars, educators, and cultural figures whose collective expertise ensures the competition’s highest standards of excellence.
PANEL CHAIRS
Sir Ben Okri OBE
Sir Ben Okri OBE is a poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright. He has also written film scripts.
His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction. Sir Ben has received numerous honorary doctorates for his contribution to literature.
Recently, his Grenfell poem on Channel Four YouTube received more than six million views on Facebook.
His poem is engraved in the Memorial Gates: “Our future is greater than our past.”
Sir Ben also recited a specially commissioned poem for the 2024 Commonwealth Day Service, focusing on resilience and the Commonwealth.
Imtiaz Dharker
Born in Pakistan and brought up in Scotland, Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and documentary film-maker who divides her time between London and India.
This mixed heritage and itinerant lifestyle are at the heart of her writing: questioning, imagistic, and richly textured poems that span geographical and cultural displacement, conflict, and gender politics, while also interrogating received ideas about home, freedom, and faith.
Imtiaz was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014 and is known for poems such as The Trick.
PANELISTS
Victoria Hislop
Victoria Hislop is a multi-million-copy bestselling author, including The Island, and her books have been translated into forty languages.
Victoria was executive producer on the adaptations of The Island, Cartes Postales and One August Night for Greek television – and recently took part in Dancing with the Stars, also on Greek television.
Victoria divides her time between England and Greece and, in 2020, was granted honorary citizenship by the President of Greece. She was recently granted an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Sheffield.
Victoria is an Ambassador for the charity Lepra.
Annie Garthwaite
Annie Garthwaite grew up in a working-class community in the northeast of England. She studied English at the University of Wales before embarking on a 30-year international business career working with multi-national companies and eventually establishing her own communications consultancy. In 2017, she studied for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Warwick, during which time she wrote her debut novel, Cecily, which was published by Penguin in 2021.
Cecily was named a ‘top pick’ by The Times and Sunday Times, a ‘Best Book of 2021’ by independent bookshops and Waterstones, and, in 2023, was optioned for television by Just John Films.
Annie’s second novel, The King’s Mother, was published in July 2024 and was immediately named ‘Book of the Month’ by The Times.
Chetna Makan
Chetna Makan was born in Jabalpur in Central India. She has a degree in fashion and worked as a fashion designer in Mumbai before moving to the UK in 2004.
Chetna participated in The Great British Bake Off in 2014 and has since written eight cookbooks. They cover baking, Indian street food, healthy Indian cuisine, vegetarian dishes, and quick Indian meals. She also has a very popular YouTube channel, Food with Chetna, where she shares her creative flair for all things cooking and baking.
Caroline Haines CC
Caroline Haines is an educator by profession, elected Master Educator 2022-2023 and has recently completed an extended term as Chair of the City of London Education Board and as a Trustee on the City of London Academy Trust.
As Chair of Governors, she led Newham Collegiate Sixth Form College to the first Ofsted Outstanding following COVID, sitting on a number of other school governing bodies and is Deputy Chair of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Board.
Caroline is also Vice Chair of Policy, Deputy Chair of Epping Forest & Commons, Chair of the Natural Environment Board, Chair of the Suicide Prevention Forum and Chair of the West Ham Park Board of Trustees for the City of London Corporation.
Ntsika Kota
Ntsika Kota is the winner of the 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa and is known for titles including And the Earth Drank Deep. Ntsika believes that his love of sci-fi and his choice to pursue education in a technical field were closely linked. His journey as a writer began in earnest while he was still a postgraduate, studying chemistry. Since then, he has written several short stories, two novellas and numerous pieces of very short ‘flash’ fiction.
Portia Subran
Portia Subran is a writer and ink artist from Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago. Her stories are inspired by her parents’ tales of colonial and early post-colonial Trinidad, her experience, and Ole Talk gathered over the years.
She is the winner of the 2019 Cecile de Jongh Literary Prize from the Caribbean Writer, and the 2016 Small Axe Literary Short Story Competition.
She was a finalist for the 2022 Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival Short Fiction Story Contest and a regional winner of the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Caribbean.
Maria Samuela
Maria Samuela is of Cook Island descent and lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
She is a writer for children and adults and was the 2018 University Bookshop Summer Writer in Residence, in association with Robert Lord Writers' Cottage Trust.
Her story, Bluey, was shortlisted for the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Maria’s work was recently selected as part of the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Long List.
Dr Paul Edmondson
Dr Paul Edmondson is Head of Research for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, an Honorary Fellow of The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, a Visiting Professor in Human Rights, Birmingham City University, and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford.
His several publications on Shakespeare include Shakespeare: Ideas in Profile and, with Stanley Wells, All the Sonnets of Shakespeare.
He is currently writing Shakespeare and Stratford-upon-Avon for the Oxford Shakespeare Topics series.
He is a Trustee of the British Shakespeare Association, on the Council of The Rose Theatre Trust, and The Friends of Shakespeare’s Church. He is a priest in the Church of England, and has lived and worked in Stratford-upon-Avon since 1995.
Joanne C. Hillhouse
Joanne C. Hillhouse is a writer from Antigua and Barbuda. She is an arts and letters laureate for the Anthony N. Sabga Award-Caribbean Excellence and was Intersect Antigua and Barbuda’s inaugural Resident Artist.
She has published eight books and founded the Wadadli Youth Pen Prize. Joanne writes CREATIVE SPACE, a column on Caribbean arts and culture.
Joanne was recently selected for the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize Long List.