Avon teams up with Silé Edwards to find new writers
British Book Awards 2020 Imprint of the Year Avon has joined forces with Literary Agent Silé Edwards at Mushens Entertainment to find a new commercial writer of colour. Launching on 11 January, the competition will be accepting submissions from un-agented, unpublished writers of colour across the UK and the winner will receive a two-book deal with the HarperCollins division, a grant to support their writing career, and representation from Mushens Entertainment.
The competition, Avon x Mushens Entertainment Prize: For commercial fiction writers of colour is open to writers from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds who are writing a commercial novel – whether in the crime, thriller, women’s fiction or historical genre. Avon publishes page-turning, entertaining fiction with clear pitches that immediately engage the reader. The winner of the competition will be selected by Senior Commissioning Editor Tilda McDonald from Avon and Literary Agent Silé Edwards from Mushens Entertainment, along with author guest judge Imran Mahmood.
Silé Edwards at Mushens Entertainment said: ‘I am so thrilled to be working with Avon and Imran on this and I hope to find some really talented authors. There are so many brilliant writers of colour who have been under represented in the commercial fiction space and I hope that this competition will help more mainstream publishers find them and publish their work. I can’t wait to read all the entries, I already know we will have excellent stories to choose from.’
Tilda McDonald, project leader at Avon said: ‘Avon are proud to work with Silé Edwards and Imran Mahmood to find and publish an exciting new talent. The publishing industry has a lot of work to do to redress the under-representation of writers of colour, especially in commercial fiction, and this is just one of the steps Avon are taking. We hope the competition will be a valuable opportunity not only for the winner, but also for the longlisted writers whom we’ll be inviting to a seminar to demystify the industry and offer advice on how to break into it. We can’t wait to read everyone’s entries.’
Imran Mahmood said: ‘I am so thrilled to have been invited as a guest judge in this competition. This is such an important initiative and I’m excited to see what the competition will bring us in terms of fresh stories, new and old, told in voices that we haven’t yet had the privilege of hearing.’
Submissions will be open from 11 January to 28 February, with a longlisted selection being invited to an online seminar with editors and judges in the spring, after which the shortlist will be selected and asked to send in their full manuscripts, with a winner being announced in the autumn. Full terms and conditions can be found here.