Jeanette Winterson will chair the judging panel of the 2013 Forward Prizes for Poetry, awarded this year on Tuesday October 1.

Her fellow-judges are actor-director Sam West, poets Paul Farley and Sheenagh Pugh, and Sunday Times journalist, David Mills.

Jeanette Winterson OBE published her award-winning first novel Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit in 1985.

In 2011 she revisited that material in her international bestseller Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? a book she calls 'an experiment

with experience'. She is Professor of Creative Writing at The University of Manchester.

A fierce advocate of poetry for everyone - in schools, at home, in hospitals, in prisons, on planes, for pleasure and for protection - Winterson

says: ‘Poems are lie detectors, challenging our cover ups and evasions, personal and political. Poems are talismans - carry them round with

you in your head or in your pocket as a charm against stupidity and spin. Poems are like a shot of espresso - hot and quick in the throat - an

energy boost when you need it. Poetry is language revved up not idling. Poetry puts into words things difficult to think.’

William Sieghart, chairman of the Forward Arts Foundation, says: ‘I am honoured to announce such a gifted panel of judges, eminent in both

writing and performance. We share Jeanette Winterson’s belief in poetry’s power to reach people in unexpected moments and startling ways:

indeed this belief fuels everything the Foundation does, from the Forward Prizes to National Poetry Day.’

The Forward Prizes shortlist will be released in June and the winners will be announced on Tuesday October 1 at Southbank Centre, London,

at a special event to launch the annual Forward Book of Poetry, an anthology of the judges’ choice of the year’s best poems. The event – held

in public for the first time in the 22-year history of the prizes ­– is part of the nationwide celebration of poetry that culminates with National

Poetry Day on Thursday October 3.

The Forward Prizes are among the nation’s most valuable poetry prizes, being worth a total £16,000.

Publishers can submit work by contemporary poets in three categories:

The Forward Prize for Best Collection (£10,000),

The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection (£5,000)

TheForward Prize for Best Single Poem, in memory of Michael Donaghy (£1,000).

The prizes were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart to raise the profile of contemporary poetry, and are distinctive in honouring not just

established writers at the peak of their careers - Best Collection winners include Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Carol Ann Duffy - but also

brilliant newcomers. Forward judges spot talent early on: they recognised Simon Armitage and Don Paterson for their very first collections, and

have also singled out work by Jackie Kay, Kathleen Jamie, Sean O’Brien and Robin Robertson with the prize for Best Single Poem.

The counterpoint of old and new names accounts for the prestige of both the prizes and the annual Forward Books of Poetry, described recently

as “the best way of encountering the richness that new poetry has to offer.”

The Forward Prizes are sponsored by Forward Publishing and Felix Dennis. The prizes, along with the Forward Book of Poetry and National Poetry

Day, are run by the Forward Arts Foundation, which is generously supported by the Arts Council England, the John Ellerman Trust and the Esmee

Fairbairn Trust.

For further details of this year’s prizes, including terms and conditions and downloadable entry forms, see

www.forwardartsfoundation.org/poetry.htm

Media enquiries about the prize: David Lasserson, Brunswick Arts

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. tel: 0207 936 1290

Media enquiries about the events: Katie Toms, Southbank Centre

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. tel: 020 7921 0926