The new national series of awards for emerging writers of
fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction, New Writing Ventures, was
launched in 2005 and achieved great success. These awards are
designed to help launch the careers of writers who are expected to
make an impact on the world of books, writers and readers in the
coming years. Click, Fiction,
Poetry
or Non-Fiction
to see the names of the successful candidates and their
biographies. We are extremely pleased to announce that
we received more than 1300 entries for this new national
series of awards and prizes for unpublished writers, and that the
standard of entries was extremely high. Read the 2005 winners'
work: Fiction:
Nicholas Hogg; Creative non-fiction:
John Smart; Poetry:
Valeria Melchioretto. The Fiction runners-up were Nell McGrath
and Wayne Milstead. The Creative Non-fiction runners-up were Liz
Diamond and Bilial Ghafoor. The Poetry runners-up were Meryl Pugh
and Rebecca O'Connor.
The New Writing Ventures awards are designed to help launch
the careers of writers who are expected to make an impact on the
world of books, writers and readers in the coming years. The
winner in each of the three categories in 2005 receives £5,000. In
addition, the winners and two shortlisted writers in each category
are given development opportunities through the Grants for the Arts
scheme by Arts Council England, East, in the region of £5,000.
This will be used towards supporting a development programme
which includes workshops, mentoring and professional
advice.
The nine shortlisted writers for New Writing Ventures 2005 are
currently in the middle of an exciting development programme that
gives them the chance of individual mentoring and advice from
writers such as Kathryn Hughes, Lavinia Greenlaw and Tobias Hill.
In addition to the cash awards, a place on this programme is a
uniquely valuable opportunity for any writer selected.