Deadline: 30 April 2024

Find Out More: https://www.penguin.co.uk/company/publishers/vintage/fern-press/fern-academy-prize

Opportunity from: Fern Academy Prize

Fern Press and How To Academy are delighted to launch the inaugural Fern Academy Prize, in association with Tortoise Media – a new annual non-fiction essay prize for those working at the frontier of creativity and thought.

The prize is designed to find and nurture emerging non-fiction talent and will be awarded to an essay of literary merit with an international and multicultural interest. The prize encourages essays that shine a light on the universal human experience – on a micro or macro scale – and which speak clearly to the times we live in. The prize is open to unagented and unpublished writers from around the world, writing in the English language.

The winning writer will receive:

£3,000 cash prize;
publication with Tortoise Media;
literary representation by RCW literary agent Laurence Laluyaux;
a five-night writing course* run by How To Academy’s sister company, Unmissable Courses;
an appearance on How To Academy’s biweekly podcast; and
mentorship from a Penguin Random House UK editor.
The judges for the prize are:

Margaret Busby (Chair), writer and publisher;
Laurence Laluyaux, RCW director and literary agent;
Mark O’Connell, writer; and
Keith Blackmore, Tortoise Media managing editor.
Submissions are now open and will close 30 April 2024. Essays should be 3,000–6,000 words in length. The prize is open to all writers who have not been published by a trade book publisher, including those who have to date only published academic papers and in other media such as magazines, newspapers and online.