East Midlands Book Award

Anyone living in the East Midlands with a book out this year should know about the East Midlands Book Award. Submissions are now open and the judges - the composer Gavin Bryars, retired academic Marion Shaw and bookseller Debbie James, from the Kibworth bookshop, should be hard at work on the early entries. Books have to be published for the first time this year, with the award being given at the end of May at Derbyshire Literature Festival. The winner gets £1000 but the shortlist will also be promoted to bookshops and libraries in the region. Any genre is acceptable including fiction, poetry and "creative non-fiction" eg biography and travel. Books for adults and children go into the same pot. Entries must be submitted by publishers or agents and, as suggested by this, self-publishing is excluded. Last year, the first year, 42 books were submitted. The winner, as mentioned previously on this blog, came from one of the smallest publishers and an astonishing six out of eight books on the shortlist came from the independent sector. Books don't have to be set in the East Midlands. Full details are on www.writingeastmidlands.co.uk/awards/