New Voices | About the Award
Over sixty years ago, a young man from Northern Rhodesia received a letter from a publisher in London, intrigued to be opening a window into African history and culture. It was a letter that changed the course of that man’s life, launching a career that spanned decades and saw over 140 million global book sales. That man was Wilbur Smith.
The New Voices Award was born from this legacy. The goal is to unearth fresh literary talent, yet to be published or represented by a literary agent and to support these writers from the start of their journey through a mentoring and editorial development programme.
Just as Wilbur shared his unique and original tales of Africa with the wider world, we, too, are looking for voices with a new story to tell. Diverse voices keep adventure writing exciting and evolving, taking us to places we’ve never been and uncovering stories we’ve never heard. We want to champion writers from every walk of life and enable them to share these stories.
As Wilbur said in his autobiography, On Leopard Rock, 'Life and stories are inextricably intertwined'. We are hoping the spectrum of voices we are looking for will tell the stories of different cultures with true authorial authenticity, creative flair and artistic ability.
What Is the Programme?
Each year, five writers are selected for this one-to-one mentoring and editorial development programme. Each writer receives a timeline, with deadlines and word counts to meet, intended to support them to complete a first draft of their manuscript over a nine-month period. Every other month, writers receive editorial notes on their submitted work from a first-rate editor, and participate in an online mentoring call to discuss progress, challenges, and dive deep into their work. The programme will focus on aspects such as structure, story arc and character development as each writer progresses.
Writers receive feedback on their finished draft manuscripts from a publisher, and participate in a call with a literary agent who advises on the querying process. The New Voices Award does not guarantee publication, but is a fast-track to finishing a draft, supporting writers to make their idea the best manuscript it can be.
The timeline is ambitious, and entrants are encouraged to consider the commitment of writing a novel over the course of nine months while the rest of life continues alongside.
You can read a blog post from a former New Voices participant, to hear what the programme entails, here.
What Are We Looking For?
Your work must be intended for an adult readership and set in our world, whether that’s contemporary or historical. It must be a work of narrative fiction and commercially viable. It must be a fledgling idea or early work-in-progress. The New Voices is not for full-length drafts.
We expect entries to be distinctive, transportive, ‘unputdownable’, and, most importantly, to take us on a journey. We want to meet characters who inspire us through their actions or resilience, and travel to or come from regions that broaden our horizons. We are looking for ideas that excite us, a writing style that keeps us turning the pages and writers who teach us something new about ourselves or the world.
We aim to champion creativity and talent that has, for too long, been overlooked. We encourage everyone to enter the New Voices Award and especially welcome submissions from underrepresented authors. This could include, but is not limited to, writers from a socio-economically marginalised background, writers who identify as Black, Asian or minority ethnic or LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer), or disabled writers or writers who have a long-term health condition. We hope to do our part in giving a broad range of talent a platform from which to offer a fresh perspective.