Virago/The Pool New Crime Writer award
Sarah Savitt, Deputy Publisher at Virago, and Sam Baker, Co-Founder and CEO of The Pool, are thrilled to announce the Virago/The Pool New Crime Writer Award, a competition to find a superlative new female crime writer for Virago - and we want your entries!
With the Virago/The Pool New Crime Writer Award we want to discover an exciting new female writer for the Virago list who is writing a suspenseful, intelligent, original crime or thriller novel.
We were founded in 1973 to celebrate women's writing and some of the imprint's most acclaimed authors, both on the front list and the Virago Modern Classics list, have drawn on the crime and thriller genre, including Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, Stella Duffy and Sarah Waters.
The Pool, an award-winning digital platform for women, was launched in 2015 by Sam Baker and co-founder broadcaster Lauren Laverne, with a mission to celebrate women's voices and produce original, quality content across multiple platforms. The winner will be offered a publishing contract with Virago as well as two hours of mentoring by acclaimed novelist Jill Dawson courtesy of Gold Dust mentoring.
To enter, writers must submit a 5,000-word sample plus a 500-word synopsis.
This will be judged by novelist Erin Kelly, literary agent Jo Unwin, journalist Coco Khan, Scott Free Development Executive Emily Iredale, Sam Baker and Sarah Savitt.
Entries must be submitted by 21 May 2017. The winner will be announced in September 2017.