Hachette Children’s Novel Award 2020
We accept debut middle-grade children’s and early teen fiction for this award. Our mission is to support exciting and exceptional new writing for children.
For the purposes of this award, ‘debut’ is defined as an author who has not published, nor is contracted to publish, a full-length work in children’s or early teen fiction. Writers previously published in other genres such as poetry, non-fiction and writing for adults may apply for this award.
We accept all kinds of children’s and early teen fiction, including but not limited to historical fiction, crime, science fiction, romance and fantasy. Please do not submit collections of short stories or individual short stories. In terms of target age group, we are looking for fiction for children aged 7-11 (at the younger end of this bracket the word count can be 15-30K; at the older end, approx. 40K), or teen fiction for readers aged 11-13 (50-65K words), this should still exclude high-end or explicit content including swearing, sex and drugs.
We do not accept young adult fiction for this award. Poetry, fiction for adults and non-fiction, including narrative-based non-fiction, may also not be entered for this award.
The initial work entered for this award will be a submission of 3000-6000 words, supported by a synopsis that fully describes the book. This must be submitted by the awards’ deadline. A shortlist of six writers will then be invited to submit the full-length draft of their novel by 17 March. Full-length manuscripts must be no shorter than 25,000 words and no longer than 65,000 words.
You must be over the age of 18 to enter.
The prize is open to submissions of work written in World English by writers of any nationality or descent who at the time of entering are permanently resident in the North of England.
Writers must currently live full-time in the North of England. The North of England is defined as the areas covered by Arts Council England in Yorkshire, North East and North West. We regret we are unable to accept submissions from outside these areas due to conditions in our funding from Arts Council England.
Previous winners of the Northern Writers’ Awards may enter for this award.
Undergraduate and postgraduate students may enter if they are permanently based in the North of England.
To be considered, work does not have to be of a ‘northern’ flavour or have a ‘northern’ theme. Writers who are writing books set in the North of England but who do not live in the region are not eligible.
All entries must be made through the online submissions portal. To qualify, a submission must consist of two items: the online application form and the creative work.
You are not eligible to enter if the work is currently part of a book deal that you have received a publishing contract and advance for. If you receive a book deal for the work during the judging period it is your responsibility to inform us of this fact.
New Writing North and Hachette Children’s Group will make final decisions on eligibility. Our decisions will be final and no communication will be entered into on the subject.
To be eligible submissions to the awards must have been made by 11.59pm on 6 February 2020. Submissions received after this point in time will not be eligible for entry.