The Gordon Burn Prize is a partnership between New Writing North, the Gordon Burn Trust and Faber & Faber The judges for the 2015 prize are: actress and writer Maxine Peake, novelist Roddy Doyle, journalist Suzanne Moore, artist Gavin Turk, and novelist and journalist Doug Johnstone. 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? We are seeking fiction submissions that challenge our perceived notions of genre and make us think again about just what it is that we are reading and non-fiction that explores in innovative and exciting ways topics that reflect Gordon Burn’s interests such as social history, sport, true crime, music, celebrity and art. 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 the Borders. The Gordon Burn Prize will reward a published title 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. A shortlist of no more than ten books will be announced in August 2015 and the winner of The Gordon Burn Prize will be announced at an awards ceremony as part of Durham Book Festival in October 2015. The prize has so far been awarded to Ben Myers (in 2013 for his novel, Pig Iron, published by Blue Moose) and to Paul Kingsnorth (in 2014 for his novel, The Wake, published by Unbound). The 2015 award will focus on work published in hardback, paperback or digitally between 1 July 2014 and 1 July 2015. The deadline for submitting entries to the prize is Monday 2 March 2015. Please consult the New Writing North website for full terms and conditions as well as submission guidelines. Please visit gordonburntrust for further details on The Gordon Burn Prize and for information on Gordon Burn’s work.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 14:09:20 +0000
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