Announcing the launch of Primadonna Publishing – and the return of the Primadonna Prize
Primadonna co-founder Catherine Mayer and the board of the charity Primadonna Festival and Prize are delighted to announce the creation of Primadonna Publishing, a new publishing imprint in collaboration with award-winning indie publisher Renard Press.
It is envisaged that the first title published by the imprint will be selected via the Primadonna Prize for unpublished and unrepresented new writing talent. On hiatus for the past three years, the prize reopens for submissions from 9 November 2026, closing on 8 January 2027.
After the announcement of the longlist on 1 March, five writers shortlisted by the judging panel by April will be invited to pitch a novel, with the winning writer announced in September and offered a contract for publication with the new Primadonna Publishing imprint.
The original Primadonna Festival and associated prize was the brainchild of a group of founding volunteers, “the Primadonnas”, from different backgrounds, all united in a desire to open the publishing industry and book festivals to wider audiences and full participation of voices too often excluded or marginalised. The idea quickly grew into an annual festival, first held in 2019, under the slogan “The world as it should be, for one weekend”.
The Primadonna Prize produced five brilliant winners over as many years, with Elissa Soave, now a three-time novelist, the first, and Natalie Gregory the most recent. Natalie’s debut novel, Mother Ghost Mango Seed, came out in June. Other authors to secure publishing deals via Primadonna include Louise Mumford, Anita Lehmann and Jenny Knight. Many aspiring writers and festivalgoers found support, encouragement, contacts and community through Primadonna – and also joy. The huge enthusiasm for Primadonna made the organisers’ decision, in 2025, to put the festival and prize on hiatus especially painful. Rising energy and production costs, the slashing of arts budgets and the impacts on festivalgoers of the cost-of-living crisis meant a choice between offering a pale version of earlier festivals or regrouping to look for other ways forward. The charity continued its work in September 2025 with the Primadonna Culture Club in Ipswich – aimed at Global Majority participants and rooted in Primadonna’s mission to amplify unheard voices. Presented in collaboration with Aspire Black Suffolk and with Kelechi Okafor as the headliner, the event promoted skills development, supported local talent and encouraged creative career pathways.
Primadonna envisages in this new phase holding events in person and online and will continue to review the possibility of a return of the festival. The charity has also established a partnership with the University of Suffolk, supporting a bursary scheme to widen access to postgraduate study for talented writers who may face structural, social, or financial barriers to participating in creative and critical writing education.
This fresh direction for Primadonna emerged from conversations between Mayer and Will Dady, the founder of Renard Press and the Indie Press Network. Renard’s founding principle is “publishing beyond the mainstream” – finding voices and writers whose voices have been traditionally neglected or left out of the canon. It commits to a gender balance in its commissioning and aims to provide a platform for books that fall through the cracks in mainstream publishing. A climate-positive press, Renard’s sustainability policy goes beyond carbon accounting, also planting trees globally and contributing to funds and charities investing in a better world. Vitally, Primadonna and Renard Press share core values and aims, including a founding commitment to inclusivity and opening up publishing for authors and readers. In selecting the theme for first-round submission for the 2027 Primadonna Prize, Mayer, Dady and the Primadonna board unanimously alighted on one word – joy. This reflects both their own feelings about the new imprint and revitalised prize and also their mission.
Catherine Mayer says: “In a challenging world, it is hard to overstate the importance of joy. Joy is great writing, joy is resistance, joy is community and kindness. We are delighted to be joining forces with Will to rekindle the joyful spirit of Primadonna.”
Dady says: “There’s a lot to complain about in the brave new world we live in, but we can’t underestimate the importance of celebrating too. I’m thrilled to be working with Catherine and all the others who have made Primadonna such a powerful force for good. I’m looking forward to flying the flag for joy, and to the conversations – and books – that lie ahead.”