Call for entries: Dundee International Book Prize

The Dundee International Book Prize has the honour of being the biggest cash prize available for unpublished authors in the UK. With a £10,000 prize fund and a guaranteed deal with the respected Cargo Publishing imprint up for grabs, it's a hotly-contested race for aspiring authors – and this year's round of unpublished novelists have just a few short weeks left to enter their novels into contention.

Last year's winner, Nicola White, who submitted her debut novel In The Rosary Garden, has gone on to launch her career as a novelist, as have previous years' winners such as Jacob M. Appel, who won in 2012 for The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up, and Simon Ashe-Brown, who won in 2011 for Nothing Human Left.

The Skinny interviewed Nicola White after her win last year – she found that winning the prize helped open the door to getting a literary agent, not to mention a publisher, after a long hard struggle to find either. "I thought the more conventional route – to find an agent who would approach publishers – would be easier," she told us. "It didn’t prove to be. Publishers praised the book, then gave wildly various reasons why they couldn’t commit to it. I think it’s not an easy time for debut writers – mainstream publishers are not wild about the untried or untested." For White, awards like the Dundee International Book Prize are vital, as they allow publishers to find ground-breaking, risk-taking new authors.

Writers have until 1pm on 4 March to enter by submitting their full manuscript and a 500 word synopsis. The prize is open to any previously unpublished writer – manuscripts published in print, in full or in part, will not be accepted, although novels self-published on digital formats are not barred from entry. 

Bill Campbell, deputy convener of Dundee City Council’s city development committee, commented: "The Dundee Book Prize has become such a well-established event on the literary calendar that it goes from strength to strength each year attracting an amazing range of aspiring novelists from across the globe. As a result of the success of the book prize Dundee has become synonymous with new writing and I am delighted that the starting pistol has been fired on the latest race towards another exciting crop of new novels."

Anna Day, Director of Literary Dundee, a University of Dundee-led initiative, said "We can't wait to read the entries for the book prize this year, it’s a really exciting process. The standard is higher each year, but the variety is the brilliant bit – reading work from authors from all over the world is a privilege and I can't wait to see what people send to us."

"We're thrilled to see the Dundee International Book Prize continually set the standard for outstanding new writing in the UK and beyond," said Gill Tasker, Editor-in-Chief at Cargo. "We eagerly anticipate this year's entries and look forward to discovering the successor to Nicola White's stunning In the Rosary Garden."

The winner will be announced in June, at the Dundee Literary Festival. Aspiring novelists can download an entry form here.

From the archive

INTERVIEWS
Nicola White - Literary Prizefighter