Skip to Content

Myriad’s First Drafts Competition 2018

Information
Closing date: 
6 July 2018
Entry: 
Open to unpublished women writers of any nationality and of African heritage or descent.
Prize: 
Publication in the forthcoming anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby and a week's writing retreat

Myriad EditionsOnline image bank of infographics from The State of the World Atlas by Dan Smith. Useful resource for students, academics, teachers, journalists and businesses, the store will soon contain maps and graphics from their entire State of the World Atlas series. Download via Paypal, low resolution images start at $1 and high resolution images from $50. is now seeking entries for a special edition of its annual First Drafts award, now in its ninth year, to launch unpublished writers. This year, the Competition will be in celebration of Myriad's forthcoming publication New Daughters of Africa edited by Margaret Busby OBE. The Competition is open to women writers of any nationality over the age of 18 who identify as female and of African heritage or descent and who have not published or self-published a book-length work of fiction or narrative nonfiction.

Entries must be:

  • an excerpt or complete work (story or essay, for example) of fiction or narrative nonfiction, including memoir
  • written in English (there is no UK residency requirement)
  • not exceeding 5,000 words

The winning entry will be published in New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of 20th and 21st Century Writing by Women of African Descent (March 2019), alongside writers including Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Malorie Blackman, Andrea Levy, Warsan Shire and Zadie Smith, 'as well as overlooked historical authors and today's emerging writers.' This new anthology is a follow-up to Busby's original Daughters of Africa (Cape, 1992).

Candida Lacey, publishing director of Myriad and one of the judging panel, said: "The timing of the competition coincides perfectly with our work with Margaret Busby on her New Daughters of Africa anthology. It was simply too good an opportunity to miss - to be able to offer an emerging author the chance to be published alongside such eminent writers. This is an exceptional opportunity not only for the winner to be published in a high-profile anthology alongside major authors but also for the finalists to bring their work to the notice of publishers and agents.

"It will celebrate a unifying heritage, a richness and magnitude of imagination, and the strong links that endure from generation to generation as well as the common obstacles that female writers of colour continue to face as they negotiate issues of race, gender and class."

Margaret Busby, writer and broadcaster, and Elise Dillsworth, literary agent, will join the First Drafts judging panel alongside an independent bookseller. The 2017 winner was Sylvia Carr Clebsch for an extract from her novel, Safe. First Drafts is a collaboration between Myriad and West Dean College. In addition to publication in New Daughters of Africa, the winner will be offered a week's writing retreat at the college.

More details

Entry by post only

 

 

Closing date: 
6 July 2018
Entry: 
Open to unpublished women writers of any nationality and of African heritage or descent.
Prize: 
Publication in the forthcoming anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby and a week's writing retreat