HarperCollins announces a new fiction prize: The Banjo

Are you Australia’s next great storyteller? Do you have a manuscript sitting collecting dust in a drawer?

A sweeping saga of unrequited love set in the Australian outback during the Gold Rush era or perhaps a nail-biting psychological thriller guaranteed to frighten the pants off the toughest of them all?

Then it’s time to dust it off and bring it into the light and enter it into The Banjo, a brand new fiction prize established by Australia's oldest publisher, HarperCollins.

From the HarperCollins Website:

HarperCollins is excited to announce the establishment of a new fiction prize, The Banjo. We’re looking for exciting new Australian voices telling the sorts of stories that we love to read – from sweeping family sagas and lush romances to dark and gritty crime, twisty psychological thrillers, rich historical dramas and contemporary romantic comedies. We’re looking for stories that make us laugh and make us cry. Stories that keep us reading late into the night. Stories that make our pulse race. Stories we just can’t put down.

So, if you’re over 18, are a fiction writer, and have an original, finished, unpublished first draft manuscript, and think you could be the next Colleen McCullough, Bryce Courtenay, Judy Nunn, Di Morrissey, Jane Harper, Kate Morton, Graeme Simsion, Liane Moriarty or Matthew Reilly – just to name a few – then The Banjo is the competition you should enter.

The Banjo will be offered annually and will be open to all Australian writers of fiction, offering the chance to win a publishing contract with HarperCollins, with an advance of $15,000. In partnership with News Regional Media, two runners-up will each receive a written assessment of their manuscript from HarperCollins.

For more details including how to enter, visit the HarperCollins website.

Entries open: 9am AEDT Friday 23 March 2018
Closing date for entries: 5pm AEDT Friday 25 May 2018

So good luck and we look forward to great reading great things from Australia’s next greatest storyteller. Hope it’s you!