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Literary fiction

Do literary novelists deserve public funding?

1 January 2018

The question of funding for literary fiction has been in the news recently and has attracted a range of different views, ranging from the feeling that literary publishers need this subsidy to be able to carry on, to Tim Lott's feeling that literary writers have lost the plot (literally).  Read more

Authors face declining incomes - should literary novelists receive more state support?

18 December 2017

Two of our links this week relate to the report just published by Arts Council England which looks at literary fiction and concludes that it is in sharp decline. A close look at the figures suggests however that literary fiction is not alone, the problem relates to fiction sales in general.  Read more

Big books in demand

14 December 2015

This article in the Guardian, Are books getting longer, shows that in both commercial bestseller lists and literary lists (measured by Booker Prize winners), the books that feature are tending to get longer. But this goes against a number of trends which you would expect to be pushing readers in the opposite direction.  Read more

Man Booker goes to stunning (and persistent) Jamaican Marlon James

12 October 2015

This week's story was to have been on the rise in support for short stories, until, that is, Marlon James had his stunning Man Booker Prize win last night.  Read more

A 'diverse and international' Man Booker longlist

3 August 2015

The longlist for this year's Man Booker Prize is both diverse and international, with a wide range of different kinds of writers and a number of debuts. The longlist features three British writers, five US writers and one each from the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, India, Nigeria and Jamaica.  Read more

Funding literary writers

26 May 2014

In an article in the print edition of the Bookseller, Philip Gwyn Jones offered a clear-sighted analysis of the current model of funding literary writing. He is the former publisher of Granta, a very highly-regarded editor with masses of experience in this area and the independence currently to call it like it is.  Read more

The Man Booker Prize goes global - in English

23 September 2013

The Man Booker Prize's decision to accept novels from American authors, providing that they are published in the UK, has been arrived at after a series of consultations lasting over the last eighteen months. How they could have expected to keep their ruminations quiet is not clear.  Read more

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‘Technology is shifting more power to the hands of authors'

19 April 2021

‘We leverage technology to discover hidden talents based entirely on the merits of their work, and less on other dimensions which might have been blockers with traditional publishing (maybe some authors have amazing manuscripts, but are not good at sales and therefore struggle to get their foot in the door, whereas our approach truly democratises the whole experience for authors).  Read more

‘Writers Are Insane. For months we are lone wolves locked in our caves. Then overnight we become publicity hounds. It's a schizophrenic business.'

— Robert Mykle

Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize

Information

Closing date: 
3 May 2021
Entry: 
International entry. No entry fee
Prize: 
Adult Fiction prize and a Young Adult /Middle Grade prize. First Prize Publication contract offer from Leapfrog Press and Can of Worms Press with advance against royalties, Second Prize $150 and critiques

Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize

*Open for submissions until May 3rd*

The first Leapfrog Fiction Prize was established in 2009 as an additional means of discovering new writing. This year, we have rebranded the contest the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize and have split the competition into two, providing both an Adult Fiction prize and a Young Adult /Middle Grade prize.  Read more

5 April 2021 - What's new

April 2021
  • ‘When an editor works with an author, she cannot help seeing into the medicine cabinet of his soul. All the terrible emotions, the desire for vindications, the paranoia, and the projection are bottled in there, along with all the excesses of envy, desire for revenge, all the hypochondriacal responses, rituals, defenses, and the twin obsessions with sex and money.
  Read more