Congratulations! See who has won the 2020 First Pages Prize
It’s with huge excitement that we announce this year’s winners of the First Pages Prize.
From a shortlist of 11 entries from writers based in Germany, the UK, the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, this year’s judge, Sebastian Faulks, has made his decision. And he chose not three but FOUR winners!
Today we would have been in Paris with Sebastian Faulks to award 1st and 2nd place winners at a special event at The American Library in Paris. We wish we could have held our planned events, but instead we are excited to present the winners in a video celebration.
Watch the video now to hear the opening paragraphs of the winning entries and enjoy an exclusive interview with Sebastian Faulks on how he approaches his first pages, why he chose the four winning entries, and great advice for entering the First Pages Prize next year.
Congratulations to this year’s winners and thank you to all entrants. We wish everyone the very best with their future writing projects.
First Pages Prize winners
1st place: The Telling Time by Pip McKay (New Zealand) - historical fiction
2nd place equal: Disappear Here by Carrie Cogan (Canada) - literary suspense fiction
2nd place equal: from the verb: to know by Jessica Elisheva Emerson (United States) - literary fiction
4th place: Bush Babies by Tej Rae (United States) - literary fiction
Thank you to The de Groot Foundation for generously sponsoring cash awards. Even though prize events were cancelled, travel and accommodation stipends were still awarded so that the 1st and 2nd place winners can either travel to prize giving events in 2021 or keep the additional monies.
Winner Pip McKay receives US$2,500, 2nd place equal winners Carrie Cogan and Jessica Elisheva Emerson each receive US$1,700 and 4th place Tej Rae receives US$400.
All four have also received a consultation with their choice of these two stellar literary agents, Caroline Hardman of Hardman & Swainson Literary Agency in London or Amy Tannenbaum of the Jane Rotrosen Agency in New York. Partial developmental editing for the 1st and 2nd place winners is also part of this year’s prize package. The remaining shortlisted writers each receive a US$300 cash award exceptionally for this year to further support emerging writers in this difficult year.
Sandra Carpenter Prize for Creative Nonfiction
In addition, we partnered with the Sandra Carpenter Memorial Fund to jointly offer the Sandra Carpenter Prize for Creative Nonfiction. Sandra was on the board of the First Pages Prize non-profit organization and was instrumental in developing the prize and its future. As a lifelong writer of compelling creative nonfiction and travel writing, Sandra’s memorial fund wanted to award a prize to lift up an emerging American writer identifying as a woman and working on creative nonfiction. Finalists for the prize were found in the short- and long-list and the memorial fund awards US$500 to one winner. She also receives partial developmental editing. The winner is…
Allison Hong Merrill for “Grafted Mandarin”
We’ll soon be publishing Q&A interviews with the winners here on the First Pages Prize inspiration page.
Don’t miss watching the video with tons of inspiring advice for writers everywhere from Sebastian Faulks. It was an absolute delight to have Sebastian as judge this year.
Stay tuned for announcements of the 2021 prize, opening in January.