Gordon Burn Prize Opens for Submissions

New Writing North, in association with Faber & Faber and the Gordon Burn Trust, is delighted to announce the second year of The Gordon Burn Prize and to open the award to new submissions.

The first Gordon Burn Prize, created to honour the literary legacy of the late Newcastle-born author, was announced at a special event in October at the 2013 Durham Book Festival when author Ben Myers scooped the prize with his novel, Pig Iron. As winner, he received a cheque for £5,000 and the opportunity to undertake a three-month writing retreat at Gordon’s own cottage in Berwickshire.

The Gordon Burn Prize is open to both fiction and non-fiction titles written in English that capture the spirit of Gordon’s writing. Gordon was a novelist undaunted by convention or genre, and the judges are looking for a writer with a similarly intrepid approach to their craft. Publishers are invited to enter exceptional fiction that dares to enter history and interrogate the past, and non-fiction on subjects such as sport, art, crime and popular culture that is brave enough to recast characters and historical events to create a new and vivid reality.

The book that wins the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize will be literature which challenges perceived notions of genre, a piece of writing that makes us think again about just what it is that we are reading. New Writing North is delighted to be part of an award that not only honours an author as significant and challenging as Gordon Burn, but also encourages other authors to follow his example and push the boundaries of their work.

“The Gordon Burn Prize rewards innovative work across both fiction and non-fiction which best represents the spirit of Gordon’s prose,” said Faber Social creative director Lee Brackstone. “In a celebrity-saturated world, which is increasingly documented in monochrome and monotonous style, it is thrilling to be associated with a prize that embraces adventurous and unusual ways of engaging with the culture.”

The judges for the 2014 prize are artist Sarah Lucas; poet and novelist John Burnside; comedian, actor and musician Julian Barratt; and 2013 winner Ben Myers.

Deadline for submissions: 14th February 2014

Please see www.newwritingnorth.com for full terms and conditions as well as submission guidelines and visit www.gordonburntrust.com for further details on Gordon’s work and the prize.

Northern Writers’ Awards Call for Submissions

£40,000 of prizes and support available to talented writers in the north of England

Deadline for submissions: Friday 17th January 2014, 5pm

New Writing North is delighted to announce that the Northern Writers’ Awards are now open for submissions. The Northern Writers’ Awards were established in 2000 as a pioneering programme that aimed to support both new and established writers in the pursuit of their creative ambitions. Since then the awards have supported over 150 writers, many of whom have gone on to achieve publication of their work in the UK and internationally.

Originally open only to writers in the North East, the awards, thanks to the support of Northumbria University, are now open to writers in the North East, North West and Yorkshire. The awards support writers of prose, poetry, creative non-fiction and children’s fiction. From this year there will also be a new programme of awards for young writers: the Cuckoo Young Writers Award and the Matthew Hale Award.

For new writers, winning a Northern Writers’ Award helps to get them noticed by agents and publishers and lifts them onto the first rung of the ladder towards publication. For more established writers, awards can buy precious time to undertake a new project or to support work in progress that has not yet been commissioned. The support that winning writers receive includes cash awards alongside mentoring, editorial feedback and support and help with professional development within the writing industry.

Past winners of the Northern Writers’ Awards include novelist and poet Carolyn Jess-Cooke, who won both a Northern Promise Award in 2008 and a Poetry Award in 2013; Niel Bushnell, who met his agent through the awards and has gone on to publish the popular children’s Timesmith series, and writer Ben Myers, whose Pig Iron has been critically acclaimed and won the 2013 inaugural Gordon Burn Prize.

Source: New Writing North

Benjamin Myers wins Gordon Burn Prize

Benjamin Myers
 was named winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize for his book Pig Iron (Bluemoose Books) at a special event at Durham Book Festival last night Saturday 19th October. Durham-born Myers will receive a £5,000 award and the opportunity to undertake a three-month writing retreat at Burn’s cottage in Berwickshire.

 

There was strong competition for the award this year, with an impressive shortlist of unusual, challenging work. However, the judging panel, comprising novelist David Peace, journalist Deborah Orr, and broadcaster and author Mark Lawson, picked Myers as the author who best represented the fearless, interrogative spirit of Burn’s writing.

Judge Deborah Orr said: “In Pig Iron, Benjamin Myers’s most recent novel, I think we have alighted on a work that captures the spirit of the Gordon Burn Prize perfectly. Which is good. This being the inaugural award, it was very important for us to start as we mean to go on.

In Pig Iron, Myers’ protagonist, the traveller, John-John, tries to escape the brutal legacy of his bare-knuckle fighting father by abandoning the travelling way of life. His new job as an ice cream man and settled life on the edge of a Northern town are meant to offer him freedom. Instead he finds prejudice, parole officers and local gangs.

The Gordon Burn Prize, run in partnership by New Writing North, Faber and Faber, and the Gordon Burn Trust, was conceived to pay tribute to the literary legacy of the late author. An incisive, undaunted writer, Newcastle-born Burn was a literary polymath, writing widely and well on a range of subjects from George Best to Peter Sutcliffe. The Gordon Burn Prize seeks to recognise writers whose work follows in his footsteps: authors whose novels enter history to interrogate the past, and non-fiction writers brave enough to recast characters to create a new and vivid reality.

For more information about Gordon Burn, please visit www.gordonburntrust.com.

For more information about Benjamin Myers, please visit www.benmyers.com

Source: New Writing North Press Release

Gordon Burn Prize Shortlist Announced

New Writing North are delighted to reveal the shortlist for the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize, which was announced at the launch for the 2013 Durham Book Festival. The prize was set up by Gordon’s publisher Faber & Faber, New Writing North, and the Gordon Burn Trust to celebrate books which capture the spirit and sensibility of Gordon’s writing.

Born and raised in Newcastle – his mother worked at Binns, his father was a paint-sprayer and Gordon was a regular visitor to St James’ Park football ground – Gordon Burn, who died in 2009, is known as a writer who never shied away from a controversial or complicated story. For him, no subject or character was beyond fictionalising; from Peter Sutcliffe, Alma Cogan, George Best and Bobby Charlton, to Damien Hirst, Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher.

Renowned novelist David Peace, author of The Damned United and the Red Riding Quartet, was at the launch to announce the eclectic and exciting shortlist. Peace is one of the judges for the prize, along with journalist Deborah Orr and novelist and broadcaster Mark Lawson.

The 2013 shortlist, which includes fiction and non-fiction, from small and big publishers alike, and authors from all over the UK, is:

How I Killed Margaret Thatcher by Anthony Cartwright (Tindal Street Press)
The Footballer Who Could Fly by Duncan Hamilton (Century)
People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry (Jonathan Cape)
Pig Iron by Benjamin Myers (Blue Moose Books)
Myra, Beyond Saddleworth by Jean Rafferty (Wild Wolf Publishing)

The winner will be announced on 19th October at a special event during Durham Book Festival at 6.30pm in Durham Town Hall, with the shortlisted authors reading from their work accompanied by music from Field Music’s Dave Brewis. Tickets are on sale from 10am on Thursday 8th August. For full details of the festival, including how to buy tickets for this and all the other events, see www.durhambookfestival.com.

Please see the Gordon Burn Trust website for further details on The Gordon Burn Prize as well as information on Gordon’s work.

New prize announced in memory of Gordon Burn

The Gordon Burn Prize will run each year in partnership with the Gordon Burn Trust, New Writing North and Faber and Faber

Gordon Burn was a writer for whom no subject or character was beyond fictionalising. Peter Sutcliffe, Alma Cogan, Duncan Edwards, George Best and Bobby Charlton, Damien Hirst, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher, and even Gordon Burn himself: Burn loved to take characters already burnished in the celebrity spotlight and explore the darkness beneath. Sometimes he would choose fiction to do this, as in his Whitbread Prize-winning debut Alma Cogan; other times – and sometimes within the same book – his methods and intentions were more ambiguous. The reader begins to question the very nature of what he is reading. Fiction? Non-fiction? Faction?

The Gordon Burn Prize seeks to reward a published title (fiction or non-fiction) written in the English language, which in the opinion of the judges most successfully represents the spirit and sensibility of Gordon’s literary methods: novels which dare to enter history and interrogate the past; writers of non-fiction brave enough to recast characters and historical events to create a new and vivid reality. Literature which challenges perceived notions of genre and makes us think again about just what it is that we are reading.

The judges for the 2013 prize are novelist David Peace, journalist Deborah Orr, and novelist and broadcaster Mark Lawson.

A shortlist of no more than ten books will be announced in February 2013 and the winner of The Gordon Burn Prize will be announced at an awards ceremony in Newcastle upon Tyne in April 2013. The winning writer will receive a cheque for £5,000 and be offered the opportunity to undertake a writing retreat of up to three months at Gordon Burn’s cottage in Northumberland.
 

“I am extremely pleased that this prize is being set up in Gordon Burn’s name, with the support of New Writing North and Faber. Gordon would have been thrilled as he loved prizes, and was very anxious that this sort of work should receive a wider audience. The fact that it will be awarded in Newcastle is particularly appropriate, as he was born and brought up there, and retained a strong connection and love for the city throughout his life.”
Carol Gorner, wife of Gordon Burn and part of the Gordon Burn Trust

“As each year passes, the world of literature misses Gordon’s genius more and more. But the relevance of his books and his unique sensibility only gathers momentum. A prize in Gordon’s name, and with respect to his radical perspective and style will, I hope, continue to draw attention to this.”
Lee Brackstone, publishing director at Faber and Faber

“Gordon Burn was one of the most exciting writers to have emerged from the North East’s dynamic literary scene. This fantastic new prize will create a legacy for his work and keep interest alive in his novels and non-fiction. It was always a very stimulating experience to work with Gordon and I’m delighted to be supporting the prize and we are all looking forward to hosting the awards event in Newcastle next spring.”
Claire Malcolm, chief executive of New Writing North

For full terms and conditions as well as submission guidelines, go to www.newwritingnorth.com.

See www.gordonburntrust.com for further details on The Gordon Burn Prize as well as information on Gordon’s work.