Diverse Voices: call for manuscripts

Frances Lincoln Limited, the award–winning publisher, and Seven Stories, the Centrefor Children’s Books, are delighted with the success to date of the Diverse Voices Award, set up in memory of Frances Lincoln (1945 – 2001) to encourage and promote diversity in children’s fiction. The prize of £1,500 plus the option for Janetta Otter-Barry at Frances Lincoln Children’s Books to publish the novel is awarded to the best manuscript for 8-to-12-year-olds that celebrates diversity in the widest possible sense. The closing date for the current award is Friday 25th February 2011. For full information about the award and to download anentry form go to www.sevenstories.org.ukAlternatively, contact the Award Co-ordinator, Helena McConnell by emailE: diversevoices@sevenstories.org.uk or helena@sevenstories.org.uk
“The exceptional quality of the winners of the first two awards is a real measure of the successof our Diverse Voices joint venture with Seven Stories. And by the time the third winner is announced in June 2011 I will have commissioned or published six books by writers who entered the award:the Takeshita Demons trilogy by Cristy Burne, winner of the inaugural award, Too Much Troubleby Tom Avery, the 2010 winner, and A Hen in the Wardrobe and Chess and Chapattis, the first two titles in the Cinnamon Grove series by Wendy Meddour, who entered the 2009 award.I am proud that the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award is achieving exactly what it set out to do –to discover and encourage new writers of exciting, culturally diverse fiction.”Janetta Otter-Barry at Frances Lincoln Children’s Books