Pen New Voices Award 2013

Write And Win $1000.00, One Year Mentorship Plus Other Chances From PEN NIGERIA

Nigerian PEN Centre is calling for entries in prose and poetry in order to short list a male and female writer in the age bracket of 18-30 years old to represent the centre in the PEN  INTERNATIONAL/NEW VOICES AWARD 2013.

Eligibility in the Nigerian short list process is based on the exact rules of the international competition as stated below. Contestants should thus note that the ultimate prize money is accessible only after scaling the Nigerian hurdle.

PEN International has set up an annual New Voices Award to encourage new writing in the countries in which we operate and to provide a much needed space for young and unpublished writers to submit their work. The award will actively encourage entries from diverse linguistic regions and communities.  Before PEN International was established in 1921, its founder, Catharine Amy Dawson Scott, set up the Tomorrow Club as a space for aspiring writers to network with more established writers. In 1928, Herman Ould, International Secretary, felt strongly that it was important for PEN to maintain focus on helping emerging writers, and so established a ‘Young PEN’ chapter.

The PEN International/New Voices Award builds on these ideas, simultaneously reconnecting with our past and moving into the future. 

PEN/NEW VOICES AWARD: AIMS 

The first annual PEN International/New Voices Award aims to: 

- encourage writers aged 18-30 to write short stories, creative non-fiction, journalism, and poetry;

- to promote freedom of expression, literature, and the tenets of the PEN Charter; 

- foster new forms of writing appropriate to our time;

- promote translation, especially into ‘bridge’ languages such as English, French, and 

Spanish; 

- provide a (much needed) space for emerging writers to submit their work; 

- help emerging writers by providing advice on how best to work towards a career as a writer; 

- to cement PEN’s profile as the world’s oldest and pre-eminent writers’ organisation

PEN INTERNATIONAL/NEW VOICES AWARD: STRUCTURE 

Details of the award’s terms of entry and judging structure are set out below: 

1) TERMS OF ENTRY 

- all candidates must be over 17 & still under the age of 30 at the time of the closing date; 

- writers who have published books may not enter but those who have existing contracts with publishers for forthcoming books may enter; 

- writers who have published pamphlets work in magazines and journals are allowed to enter; 

- prose entries must be between 2,000-4,000 words;

- poetry entries may take the form of individual poems, a sequence, or one long poem of no more than 2,500 words in total; 

- writers may only submit one prose work; 

- a long list of six writers will receive feedback on their entries from distinguished experts;

- Two winning writers, a male and a female would have their entries sent to PEN International as Nigeria’s entry that might stand a chance of winning the ultimate prize money

-The winning entries would be translated into English, French, Spanish and one or two Nigerian Languages

- there will be no entry fee

2) JUDGING THE AWARD 

- the award will be open to submissions from March 15th to May 15th, 2013; 

- the submission window will close 12 midnight on 15 May 2013 and no late entries will be considered; 

- our team of judges will offer online mentorship for a short list of six for not more than one year after the competition

3) GUIDELINES

- amendments cannot be made to entries after they have been submitted, nor substitutions made;

- poems to be single-spaced and a line count noted at the top of the first page;

- short stories to be double-spaced and a word count noted at the top of the first page;

- the filename of online entries must be the title of the entry and it must be either a .doc, .docx, .rtf, .wps, .pdf or .txt file;

- all entries are judged anonymously: do not include the entrant’s name on the document, only on the application sheet;

- worldwide copyright of each entry remains with the author, but PEN International will have the unrestricted right to publish entries in the e-anthology, in print, on the website, and in any relevant promotional material;

- the judges' decision is final and no individual correspondence can be entered into;

To enter send your entry with subject as PEN NEW VOICES 2013 to Secretary General, Nigeria Pen Centre, Ropo Ewenla: firo_po@yahoo.co.uk.

PEN International celebrates literature and promotes freedom of expression. Founded in 1921, our global community of writers now comprises 146 Centres spanning more than 100 countries. Our programmes, campaigns, events and publications connect writers and readers for global solidarity and co-operation. PEN International is a non-political organisation and holds consultative status at the United Nations and UNESCO. www.pen-international.org.