Writing for Children

The Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award is for a manuscript that celebrates cultural diversity in the widest possible sense, either in terms of its story or in terms of the ethnic and cultural origins of its author.
The purpose:
• Take positive steps to increase the representation of people writing from or about different cultural perspectives, whose work is published in Britain today.
• Promote new writing for children, especially by or about people whose culture and voice are currently under-represented.
• Recognise that as children’s books shape our earliest perceptions of the world and its cultures, promoting writing that represents diversity will contribute to social and cultural tolerance.
• Support the process of writing rather than, as with the majority of prizes, promoting the publication.
PRIZE
£1,500, plus a full editorial consultation with Janetta Otter-Barry at Frances Lincoln Children’s Books and a meeting with leading literary agent Caroline Sheldon, will be awarded to the best work of unpublished fiction for 8–to-12-year-olds by a writer, aged 18 years or over, who has not previously published a novel for children. LENGTH
Minimum of 15,000 words and a maximum of 35,000 words. DEADLINE
Monday 31 December 2012.

For more information visit SEVEN STORIES, the National Centre for Children’s Books