Deborah Rogers Foundation announces 2020 DRF Writers Award

The Deborah Rogers Foundation (DRF) Writers Award, worth £10,000, is awarded to help a new writer pursue a writing career. Submissions for the 2020 award are now open until 31 October 2019.

The judges of the 2020 DRF Writers Award are Ian Rankin (Chair), Sarah Perry and Max Porter. They will announce a shortlist of three in April 2020 and the award will be presented in London in mid-May 2020.

The winner of the 2018 DRF Writers Award was Deepa Anappara for her novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, to be published by Chatto & Windus in February 2020, with rights already sold in 18 further countries.

The 2020 award of £10,000 will be presented to a first-time writer whose submission demonstrates outstanding literary talent and who needs financial support to complete their work. Conditions for entry are as follows:

  • Submissions should take the form of 20–25,000 words of a work in progress, fiction or non-fiction, which is not under option or contract.
  • Applicants may not be under contract to any publisher for any work or title in any language.
  • Applications are open to writers who have not previously published a full-length book of their own prose writing (including self-published or published online) excluding a collection of their own poetry. They may have published short prose writing within a magazine/anthology.
  • Entrants must write in the English language and reside within the British Commonwealth or Republic of Ireland.
  • Submissions should be accompanied by a brief synopsis and biographical note.
  • Applicants who have previously submitted work for the DRF Writers Award may re-apply but the work submitted must be new.
  • The winner will receive a cheque of £10,000 and each runner-up will receive £1,000.

For more information on the award and how to enter, visit deborahrogersfoundation.org.