The Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize

The Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize is an annual award for adventure writing.

This award is split into two separate categories – a prize for the best published adventure novel of the previous calendar year and a prize for the best unpublished adventure manuscript submitted for consideration.

The winner of the prize for a published novel will receive £10,000. The winner of the prize for an unpublished manuscript will be offered the Writer’s Adventure Research Award. The award is an exceptional opportunity in the form of a £5,000 grant, enabling the winner to travel to undertake invaluable research for their next story. They will also be offered guidance from Wilbur’s literary agents at Tibor Jones & Associates.

Criteria

Entries for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize must meet the following criteria:

Published Work

1. Entries can be submitted from the 31st of October 2016 until the 23rd of January 2017. Any novel submitted after the deadline will not be eligible for entry.
2. The competition is open to writers of any nationality writing in English.
3. Entrants may submit multiple works as long as they were all published between the 1st of January 2016 and the 1st of January 2017.
4. The work in question must have been published by a recognised trade publisher.
5. Entrants must submit two copies of the completed novel, as well as a covering letter explaining why the work qualifies as adventure writing (using the definition provided here), to the following address: The Wilbur and Niso Smith Foundation, 2-6 Atlantic Road, 2nd Floor, London, SW9 8HY.
6. We reserve the right to disqualify any entry if we have reasonable grounds to believe that the entrant has breached any of these rules.
7. We cannot accept any responsibility for any damage, loss, injury or disappointment suffered by any entrant entering the competition.
8. We will act in accordance with current UK data protection legislation in relation to your personal data. All personal data entered is secure.
9. We reserve the right to amend these rules where it is deemed necessary to do so or where circumstances are beyond our control. We reserve the right to not award the first prize, where circumstances are beyond our control, or if the judges’ overall verdict is that the level of entries is not up to the required standard.
10. Submission of entry is taken to be an unqualified acceptance of these rules.
11. The shortlist will be announced in April 2017.

Unpublished Work

• Entries can be submitted from the 31st of October 2016 until the 23rd of January 2017. Any manuscript submitted after the deadline will not be eligible for entry.
• The competition is open to writers of any nationality writing in English.
• You may enter multiple works but novels will be considered as separate entries, so each completed manuscript must be accompanied by its own covering letter, explaining why the work qualifies as adventure writing (using the definition provided here), a synopsis and a copy of your CV.
• All submissions must be made via email (submissions@wilbur-niso-smithfoundation.org).
• Submissions must exceed 50,000 words in length.
• Self-published e-books are eligible, but manuscripts that have been published in any other format are not.
• If you enter your novel in other competitions and you win, please notify us and withdraw your submission.
• Entrants must not be represented by a literary agent.
• We reserve the right to disqualify any entry if we have reasonable grounds to believe that the entrant has breached any of these rules.
• We cannot accept any responsibility for any damage, loss, injury or disappointment suffered by any entrant entering the competition.
• We will act in accordance with current UK data protection legislation in relation to your personal data. All personal data entered is secure.
• We reserve the right to amend these rules where it is deemed necessary to do so or where circumstances are beyond our control. We reserve the right to not award the first prize, where circumstances are beyond our control, or if the judges’ overall verdict is that the level of entries is not up to the required standard for publication.
• Submission of entry is taken to be an unqualified acceptance of these rules.
• The shortlist will be announced in April 2017.

For more information: http://www.wilbur-niso-smithfoundation.org/index.php?p=awards/adventure-writing-prize