Alex Bescoby

Alex Bescoby is an award-winning filmmaker, author and broadcaster whose work explores adventure as a way into history, culture and our shared human experience. He is the author of The Last Overland: Singapore to London, shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award and the Royal Automobile Club Book of the Year. Alongside his writing, Alex co-founded Grammar Productions, and has written, produced and presented major documentary films for Sky History, Channel 4, PBS and the BBC, often working on stories that sit at the intersection of travel and history. His approach is shaped by time spent on the road, in the archives, and with the people whose lives are bound up in the journeys he makes.

Costanza Casati

Costanza Casati was born in Texas and grew up in a village in Northern Italy, where she studied Ancient Greek, and Ancient Greek literature, under one of the country’s most rigorous academic programmes. She is a graduate of the prestigious Warwick Writing MA in the UK, and has worked as a screenwriter and journalist. Her debut novel, Clytemnestra, has sold into more than 20 territories worldwide, was the winner of the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award and was shortlisted for the Historical Writers Association Debut Crown Award. Babylonia, her second novel, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and the winner of the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. Her next book, Mythmaker, is a historical fantasy set in Renaissance Italy.

​Joshua Adeyemi

Joshua Adeyemi, better known as TalesbyJosh across various social media platforms, is an award-winning outdoor influencer and content creator dedicated to inspiring others to connect with nature. An avid adventurer based in Scotland, he shares his passion for the outdoors through breathtaking content that highlights hiking, climbing, running, and water sports in majestic locations around the world.

Recognising the lack of diversity in the outdoor space, Joshua founded Black Scottish Adventurers, a thriving community of nearly 4,000 members. The group works to encourage ethnic minorities to explore the outdoors, promoting physical and mental well-being while fostering environmental awareness.

As a board member of one of Scotland’s largest walking charities, Joshua is committed to making outdoor spaces more accessible and inclusive. His mission is to empower individuals to embrace nature while understanding their role in protecting the planet. Through storytelling, advocacy, and collaborations with outdoor organisations, Joshua connects people with nature one adventure at a time.

Preet Chandi

Captain Preet Chandi is a former British Army Officer and physiotherapist. She served in the Royal Army Medical Corps for 16 years. In 2022, Preet became the ninth woman in history to ski solo to the South Pole and the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition on the continent. Preet set out on her next adventure, during which, she broke two Guinness world records for the longest solo unsupported one-way ski expedition by a woman and overall. As part of the endeavour, she covered 922 miles in 70 days.

She returned to Antarctica less than a year later for her fourth world record, completing the female speed record to the South Pole in 31 days, 13 hours, and 19 minutes. She completed this expedition on 28th December 2023.

Her aims for her expeditions were to inspire as many people as possible. Preet wanted to show that everybody starts somewhere. She emphasises that, no matter where you’re from or what your starting point in life is, you are capable of smashing the glass ceiling into a million pieces and creating your own definition of “normal” on the journey to success.

Preet completed her Sports and Exercises Medicine MSc in 2021 and has published medical research conducted on the physiological data she gathered during expeditions. In 2022, she completed more than four months of school talks all over the UK, reaching more than 18,000 students. That same year, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

She won the ‘Inspirational’ and ‘Woman of the Year’ awards at the inaugural Women in Defence event in October 2022, became ‘Explorer of the Year 2023’ and received the Geographical Award 2025 from the Royal Geographical Society.

Tamsin Collison

Tamsin has spent her whole career working with words - written, spoken, sung and recorded. She is the award-winning director of over 500 audiobooks and dramas for many of the top UK publishers, from Tolstoy's War & Peace to Beowulf in Anglo Saxon with a couple of Wilbur Smith novels along the way! Recent highlights include a new set of the original Ian Fleming James Bond adventures, Beth Brower's wildly-popular Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion and Audible's multi-voice, enhanced-audio Harry Potter productions. She is currently working with Artangel and the Canadian artist Terence Gower on Enemies and Rascals - a sound installation piece for the Maughn Library at King's College, London, (July-Nov 2026). She is also a lyricist/librettist, commissioned by English National Opera, the Royal Opera House, Tête à Tête Opera, The Shout, Highbury Opera Theatre and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Last Man Standing, written with composer Cheryl Frances Hoad for the BBCSO's Armistice Centenary season,  was broadcast live on Radio 3. Her most recent work is an opera based on Michael Palin’s play The Weekend, written with jazz composer Scott Stroman. She lectures and directs Audio, Shakespeare, Classical Text and Poetry at leading UK drama schools, including LAMDA and RADA, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

You

One chair is reserved for you, the reader. Adventure is a genre beloved by many, but it only truly comes alive when someone picks up the book and steps into the story. Readers are at the heart of everything we do. After all, as Samuel Johnson said, “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”

You will have three votes to award and whether you want to share them between titles or award them all to one is your choice. The votes will be collated and together, will be awarded the equivalent weight to one seat on the judging panel.