Who are the 36 longlisted entries for First Pages Prize 2020?
The First Pages Prize 2020 received entries from 43 countries and 614 cities. Countries with the most entries were the US (56%) and the UK (5%). Fiction of all genres made up 81% of entries, and creative nonfiction of all stripes comprised the remaining 19%. The quality of submissions was impressive with gripping, well-crafted passages in each entry.
The judging committee agonized over the challenging choices to select the following long list of 36 with many entries coming very close. We wish everyone’s submission could be on this list, but most of all, we encourage you to keep writing.
The longlist of 36 is as follows (in alphabetical order by title):
All a Big Family by Clementine Burnley, Germany
All that is Solid by Emily Kiernan, USA
Ayat by A. Bandeh-Ahmadi, USA
Barefoot by Ruth Bayley, New Zealand
Bright, Shiny by Asa Murphy, USA
*Bullets, Bombs, and My Father’s Campaign by Jennie Bauduy, USA
Bush Babies by Tej Rae, USA
*Collected: A Memoir by Jeniah Johnson, USA
Disappear Here by Carrie Cogan, Canada
Disquiet by Alistair Mackay, South Africa
Endangered by Antony Dunford, UK
*Flagro by Mary Kancewick, USA
From the Verb: to Know by Jessica Elisheva Emerson, USA
*Grafted Mandarin by Allison Hong Merrill, USA
*Grief Is Not Linear by S. Isabel Choi, USA
Henrietta's Ghosts by Claire Alcock, Australia
Her Fifth and Final Round by Sue Arnott, USA
Hudiksvall by Patty Berg, USA
In the Pines by Jerico Lenk, USA
La Rana by Nancy Foley, USA
Loop by Kate Tregaskis, UK
Loud and Mute Birds: A Novel by Mark Keats, USA
My Year of Just Beginning by Allegra Armstrong, USA
Now and There by Julie Wittes Schlack, USA
Piecework by Colette Sartor, USA
*Please Come Home by Margaret LeDuc, USA
*Say You Want to Live and Be Beautiful by Lori Jakiela, USA
Softened Objects by Rebekah Heaney, UK
Stone Mother by Malve Slocum Burns, USA
The Cocklers by Julia Rampen, UK
The House of Belldante by Sarah Bichsel, USA
The Little Death by Naomi Telushkin, USA
The Merchant of Madness by Ian Flitcroft, Ireland
The Silence Project by Carole Hailey, UK
The Telling Time by Pip McKay, New Zealand
What Could Be Bad by Anna Wood, USA
Congratulations to all!
The shortlist will be announced May 13, 2020.
*The seven entries with an asterisk are finalists for the Sandra Carpenter Prize for Creative Nonfiction. You can read more about this special prize here.
Additional cash awards
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the prize-giving events June 9-10 in Paris are canceled. We are directing the budget for prize-giving events to further support emerging writers in this exceptional year. Therefore, the 1st and 2nd place winners will receive their travel and accommodation stipend of $1,500 to either keep as an additional cash award or use to attend prize-giving events in 2021. The 3rd place winner will receive an additional cash award of $500 and $300 will be given to each of the other shortlisted entrants.
Thank you
Thank you to The de Groot Foundation for co-founding and generously supporting the First Pages Prize. We look forward to partnering with The American Library in Paris for the 2021 prize events.
Thank you to all who entered. It is always an absolute honor and privilege to read each entry.
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