Diverse Voices 2013 is now open!

In 2010, Too Much Trouble, my debut book, then just a manuscript, had the honour of winning the Frances Lincoln Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award.  This fantastic award for unpublished writers is now open for entries for the 2013 award.

The award is for a manuscript that celebrates cultural diversity in the widest possible sense, either in terms of its story or the ethnic and cultural origins of its author.  The prize of £1,500, plus the option for Janetta Otter-Barry at Frances Lincoln Children’s Books to publish the novel, will be awarded to the best work of unpublished fiction for 8-to-12-year-olds by a writer, aged 18 years or over, who has not previously published a novel for children.

And, this year, there’s a few new faces on the judging panel, joining Janetta Otter-Barry, my fantastic editor, Kate Edwards, Chief Executive of Seven Stories, and Jake Hope, Children’s Librarian for Lancashire libraries are Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties), and Alex Wheatle MBE, the award-winning British novelist of Jamaican heritage.

To date there have been three awards and Janetta Otter-Barry has commissioned or published eight books by writers who entered the award: four Takeshita Demons books by Cristy Burne, winner of the inaugural award; Too Much Trouble by Tom Avery, the 2010 winner; last year’s winner Om Shanti Babe by Helen Limon, which will be published in 2012; and A Hen in the Wardrobe and The Black Cat Detectives, the first two titles in the Cinnamon Grove series by Wendy Meddour, who entered the 2009 award.

So, if you’re out there writing your first novel, your first fantastic novel I might add, then check out this award.  It could be, like it was mine, your break!

Helen Limon (2011 winner), Me (2010 winner) and Karon Alderman