One week left to submit!

With just seven days left to send us your Writers’ Prize submissions, what better way to encourage you than to share news of one of last year’s longlisted writers, Hamish Morjaria?

Pan Macmillan India have acquired Hamish’s ‘heart-stopping thriller trilogy, The Harveen Gill Mysteries in a pre-empt. His first book, The Muziris Empire, which he submitted for the prize last year, will be published in summer 2024.

Speaking of his involvement with the Book Edit prize last year, Hamish said “The journey to publication can be a difficult one, perhaps even more so for writers who come from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. Entering and being long listed for The Book Edit Writers’ Prize in 2022 was an important step for me. The kind words from Emily about The Muziris Empire were a welcome boost as I navigated the querying process.

Congratulations, Hamish! We can’t wait to see your books in print!

And for those of you inspired by Hamish’s journey, why not see where submitting to this year’s prize might take you?

Happy 2023

A belated Happy New Year to you all and a big thank you for being a part of The Book Edit this year.

This is the second year we’ve run the Writers’ Prize and we’re extremely proud of our winners.

Author photo of Julie Rea

Book Edit Writers’ Prize winner 2022, Julie Rea

Author photo of Malachi McIntosh

Book Edit Writers’ Prize winner 2021, Malachi McIntosh

Hot off the press, one of last year’s winners - Malachi McIntosh - has won the Royal Society of Literature’s Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction, while one of 2022’s winners - Julie Rea - has just signed with Juliet Pickering, at Blake Friedmann. We can’t wait to see what our winners do next on their writing journeys.

This year we’ve got some exciting plans in store. We’ll be launching our first course - an introduction to developmental editing - for anyone who’s interested in finding out more about this creative art. Hit the button below to be first to hear about the course when it launches.

And for anyone who wants a boost to their writing, we’re offering a 10% discount on our mentoring, agent submission packages, and developmental editing services up to the end of February 2023. Just quote BENEWYEAR23 when sending an enquiry

Wishing you all a creative, inspiring 2023.

Submit to the Writers' Prize 2022

There’s just over a week to go until the Book Edit’s Writers’ Prize deadline on October 22!

Launched on September 12, we’re into the second year of the competition and this time we’re delighted that it will be judged by acclaimed author Dr Elizabeth Chakrabarty.

The eight talented winners will again have the chance to read their work at a live zoom showcase event in front of industry guests and Book Edit contacts.

A recording of the 2021 showcase is available here and an anthology of the extracts can be found here.

The prize is open to unpublished British and/or UK-based novelists from backgrounds and communities currently underrepresented in British publishing. Our FAQs page has more on eligibility and what we mean by underrepresented.

Elizabeth Chakrabarty, our judge for this year, published her debut novel, Lessons in Love and Other Crimes in 2021 after leaving academia to concentrate on her writing. She has since been longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize, and for the Dinesh Allirajah Prize 2022 for her short story That Last Summer.

Portrait of author Elizabeth Chakrabarty by Jason Keith

Writers’ Prize Judge, author Elizabeth Chakrabarty

Elizabeth’s novel was inspired by her experience of a hate crime while she was working in higher education, and in a personal essay in Wasafari she writes about some of the things she was told whilst working in academia, such as that she had spelled her own name wrong and being asked if she had an arranged marriage.

In an interview with The Book Edit’s Founder, Emily Pedder, Chakrabarty has commented before that it is not surprising “just how non-diverse the publishing industry is in the UK, although that seems to be changing.”

The Book Edit Writers’ Prize aims to support those talented writers who might not otherwise have access to the industry. For the chance to have your work judged by Charkrabarty, all you need to submit is the first 1,000 words of your novel. For full competition details, dates and submission guidelines follow this link. The competition closes on 22nd October.

This competition is completely free to enter, and all entrants will receive advice on other options including courses, mentoring and editing (so you can’t lose!).

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

 

Source: https://theindigopress.com/elizabeth-chakr...