Warwick Prize for Writing 2015: theme and judges announced
Submissions are now open for the Warwick Prize for Writing, under the theme of instinct.
In addition to winning the £25,000 monetary prize, the winner will be awarded the opportunity to take up a short placement at Warwick.
The unique biennial literary prize, run by the University, celebrates the best writing in English in all its forms and disciplines and is an international cross-disciplinary award open to any genre or form of writing.
The judging panel will be chaired by Warwick alumna and author A L Kennedy, who will be joined by author and academic Robert Macfarlane, actress and director Fiona Shaw, Warwick alumnus and Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler and physician and writer Gavin Francis.
The announcement of the theme and judging panel was made at Cheltenham Literature Festival as part of a special Warwick Prize event with Warwick Prize 2009 winner Naomi Klein, introduced by A L Kennedy. The announcement of the winner in November 2015 will form a key part of our 50th anniversary celebrations.
Dr Sarah Moss, Co-Director of the Warwick Prize for Writing says:
The Warwick Prize for Writing is unique in celebrating the best written English in any genre, prose or verse, print or electronic, polemic or simply beautiful. This is an exciting year for us as we invite submissions from publishers all over the world, and our judges will need all their instinct and experience to find the winner."
Submissions
Changes to the prize eligibility this year mean that for the first time the prize will be open to submissions directly from publishers from around the world. Faculty, students and staff from Warwick and Monash University will continue to be able to nominate significant pieces of writing of whatever form they choose, including electronic and new media as well as more traditionally recognised forms. Alumni of both institutions will also be able to nominate works.
Publisher submissions will be limited to two titles per imprint which must have been published between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2015. Submissions may be translations of a work first published in another language, provided that the work is the first English translation and was published for the first time within the stated prize period.
About the Warwick Prize for Writing
The Warwick Prize for Writing was founded in 2009. The nominations process was expanded to include Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, in 2013 following the formation of the Monash-Warwick Alliance.
Naomi Klein was the inaugural winner of the prize in 2009, for her book The Shock Doctrine, an exposé of disaster capitalism. The 2011 prize was awarded to Peter Forbes for Dazzled and Deceived, a cultural history of mimicry and camouflage in nature, art and warfare. The prize was awarded to a poet for the first time in 2013, to Alice Oswald for Memorial.