Prize judged by Beryl Bainbridge

A literature student has won the Margaret Hewson Prize for new writing, chosen by judge Beryl Bainbridge shortly before her death.

Bainbridge, the author of According to Queeney, died earlier this month from a short battle with cancer.

She had agreed to judge the competition having been a friend of the late Margaret Hewson, joint director of the Johnson & Alcock literary agency.

The prize went to Laura McClelland, an MA student on Royal Holloway's creative writing course, led by Andrew Motion.

Andrew Hewson, Margaret's husband, who runs the agency, told the Guardian that Beryl had been given 15 pieces of prose and poetry to read.

'We didn't try to influence her judgement, but she did in fact pick what the consensus here had decided was an outstanding piece of work by Laura McClelland,' he said.

Ms McClelland's winning piece about a group of Pre-Raphaelites is part of what she hopes to become her first novel, of which publishers are already showing interest, the newspaper reported.