The 13th Doctor, as played on BBC One by Jodie Whittaker, will also feature in a novel and a short story by the two acclaimed authors

The award-winning authors Naomi Alderman and Juno Dawson are stepping into the Tardis, writing fiction featuring Jodie Whittaker as the 13th incarnation of Doctor Who.

Whittaker’s first series starring as the 13th Doctor will launch on BBC One this autumn. Alderman, who won the Baileys prize for her dystopian novel The Power, is writing a new short story featuring Whittaker’s Doctor “battling to save the universe alongside her close and trusted friends”. It will be included in the collection Thirteen Doctors, 13 Stories, due out in November.

Dawson’s novel The Good Doctor, out in October, will also star the first female incarnation of the venerable Time Lord. The author said her earliest memory was of “Bonnie Langford being spun off into space in a killer bubble in 1987, so you can only imagine how excited I was when I was asked to write for the Doctor Who range”.

“As a Bradford girl, it’s an even bigger thrill to be among the first writers in the world to write for Jodie Whittaker, the first Doctor from Yorkshire,” Dawson added. “This feels like a bold new era … and I’m beyond delighted to be a part of it. This is a dream come true.”

Alderman previously wrote the 2011 Doctor Who novel, Borrowed Time, featuring the 11th Doctor (as played by Matt Smith). She said her first ever rejection letter was from Doctor Who magazine in 1992, for a story she wrote as a teenager. “I’ve loved Doctor Who since I was a child,” she said, “so it’s particularly meaningful and exciting for me to be adding my name to this anthology.”