You must be over the age of 18 to enter.
We accept fiction and narrative non-fiction for this award. To be eligible for this award your manuscript must be complete at the time of application.
New, emerging and established writers may enter for this award. If your work is at an earlier stage of development you should enter one of our other awards strands.
We accept fiction from any genre, including literary fiction, crime, science fiction, romance and fantasy. You may submit novels, novellas and collections of short stories, but not individual short stories. We do not accept poetry, children’s writing or young adult novels for this award.
Children’s writers should enter the Hachette Children’s Novel Award. Young Adult writers should explore our awards strands for the most appropriate outlet. Poets should enter either the New North Poets Award or the Northern Writers’ Award for Poetry.
Narrative non-fiction has stylistic and structural similarities to fiction but deals instead with factual or mostly factual subject matter. Work that fits in this category includes biography, memoir, nature writing and non-fiction with a strong literary intent. Works of factual, technical, journalistic and scientific writing, local history, travel writing or translation are not eligible for entry.
The award 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. Applicants 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. Undergraduate and postgraduate students may enter if they are permanently based in the North of England.
The Northern Writers’ Awards support new work in progress. The work that you enter for the awards must be your current work in progress. For prose writers we expect to see an extract of work supported by a synopsis that fully describes the book that you are working to complete. Applicants are not eligible if the work that they are submitting is currently part of a book deal that they have received a publishing contract and advance for. If you receive a book deal for your work during the judging period it is your responsibility to inform us of this fact.
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.
To be eligible submissions to the awards must have been made by 11:59pm on 18 February 2021. Submissions received after this point in time will not be eligible for entry.
New Writing North and Saraband will make final decisions on eligibility. Our decisions will be final and no communication will be entered into on the subject.
Employees of Saraband may not enter for this award.
For more advice and guidance on your application, visit our FAQs.