FAB Prize 2017. New prize to find Black, Asian or Ethnic writers and illustrators for children.

FAB Prize 2017

Faber & Faber and the Andlyn Literary Agency launch new prize to find Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) writers and illustrators for children

Faber Children’s has teamed up with the Andlyn Literary Agency to create the Faber Andlyn BAME (FAB) Prize to help discover new writers and illustrators from BAME backgrounds, and to provide a year-long mentoring scheme for one author and one illustrator.

Judging panel: Faber Children's Publisher Leah Thaxton, Andlyn Literary Agent Davinia Andrew-Lynch, Faber Creative Director Donna Payne, Faber Children's Art Director Emma Eldridge.

Leah Thaxton says: 'I am extremely excited about this prize and the opportunity it gives us to reach out directly to undiscovered BAME writers and illustrators for children. It is clear that the industry needs to do much, much more to unearth new talent and make our publishing more representative.'  

Davinia Andrew-Lynch says: ‘We know that young readers greatly benefit from books which reflect the society in which they live, and that such books provide a clearer understanding of the world around them. To meaningfully change the output of our market we need to reach out beyond the usual publishing spheres and directly find those writers and illustrators who may, for whatever reason, have not been given a voice within our industry.'  

Donna Payne says: ‘This is a call to all those undiscovered writers and illustrators who possess the talent to channel their own BAME experiences into books that can be enjoyed by every child, regardless of ethnicity. It's been said that books have the power to enable us to change how we see the world, and this is especially true of children's publishing. The FAB prize is a fantastic opportunity to find a way into the publishing industry for those authors and artists with the power to change.’

Emma Eldridge says : ‘This is an important and exciting competition and I look forward to seeing many talented entrants’ work. I hope the prize will bring recognition to the very best undiscovered BAME children's writers and illustrators.’

First Prize

For illustration: £500 (or £300 and a one year portfolio membership for the Association of Illustrators worth £200), plus a private consultation with Donna Payne, Emma Eldridge and Davinia Andrew-Lynch, followed by a year of regular mentoring, plus a selection of Faber books.

For text: £500, plus a private consultation with Leah Thaxton and Davinia Andrew-Lynch, followed by a year of regular mentoring, plus a selection of Faber books.

Second prize

Consultation with Leah Thaxton, Donna Payne, Emma Eldridge and Davinia Andrew-Lynch, plus a selection of Faber books.

ENTRY CRITERIA

Entrants must be of black, Asian or minority ethnic background

Entrants must be previously unpublished

Entries must be text or artwork for children (i.e. 1–18 years), not for adults

UK and Ireland residents only

Applicants must be over 18

Applicants can apply for both prizes – text and illustration – but can only submit one entry per text or art category. All email entries will be acknowledged on receipt, but only winners will be contacted directly, so please watch out for the announcement in June 2017!

Text

Please email or send by post a maximum of 5,000 words of text

There is no minimum word count and the maximum 5,000 words can be a sample of a longer work – it does not have to be a short story (though those are welcome too!)

Please send in the complete story if the text is for a picture book. (Picture books should not be longer than 5000 words!)

If your text competition entry is for an illustrated book, you do not need to submit illustrations.

If sending by post, NO handwritten entries please

Please do not send original work. Please do not send CDs of work.

We will not be able to return entries

If emailing, please send the text either as a Word document or a PDF attachment, not in the body of the email, and put ‘Text Submission’ as the subject of your email heading

Please include your name in the file name

Please send your entry by email to fab@faber.co.uk.

Or please send your postal entry to: TEXT SUBMISSION, FAB PRIZE, Faber & Faber, 74–77 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DA

Illustration

Please email or send by post either 1) a maximum of ten A4 pages of illustration OR 2) the full layouts and illustrations for a 32-page picture book

Please do not send original work. Please do not send CDs of work

We will not be able to return entries

Entries can include text, but text is not necessary to enter the illustration competition.

If emailing, please send your art as a PDF attachment, and put ‘Art Submission’ as the subject of your email heading. Please include your name in the file name.

Please send your entry by email entries to fab@faber.co.uk

Or please send your postal entry to: ILLUSTRATION SUBMISSION, FAB PRIZE, Faber & Faber, 74–77 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DA

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUERIES ABOUT CRITERIA PLEASE EMAIL FAB@FABER.CO.UK