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Women rule new writing awards

02.08.07

Women dominated the shortlists for the New Writing Ventures Awards, taking eight of the nine shortlist places. Now in its third year, the New Writing Ventures Awards are a showcase for emerging writers of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction. This year's fiction shortlist included Azma Dar for The Secret Arts, Char March's In Memory of Showers and Tista Austin  for Ashes and Light; creative non-fiction saw nominations for Carmen Bugan's Burying the Typewriter, Suzanne Joinson's Laila Ahmed and Jane Shepherd's Candy Cake; and Mir Mahfuz Ali, Jemma Borg and Jacqueline Gabbitas were nominated in Poetry.

Each shortlisted writer receives £1,000, and the winner in each category will receive £3,000, a year of online mentoring from The Literary Consultancy and introductions to agents and publishers.

The 2005 awards saw two of its winners secure publishing deals; winner of the 2005 fiction category Nicholas Hogg's Show Me the Sky will be published by Canongate in 2008, and runner-up of the 2005 Creative Non-Fiction category Liz Diamond has secured a two-book deal with Picador. Her first novel, An Accidental Light, will be published in spring 2008.

The winners will be announced on 11th September at Waterstone’s, Piccadilly.

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