Entries are open for The Banjo Prize 2019 – close 24 May

HarperCollins Publishers Australia is delighted to announce that entries are  open for the 2019 Banjo Prize.

HarperCollins launched The Banjo Prize in 2018 in a quest to find Australia’s next great storyteller. The inaugural recipient is Tim Slee, whose debut novel Taking Tom Murray Home will be published by HarperCollins in July 2019.

The Banjo Prize is offered annually and is open to all Australian fiction writers, offering the chance to win a publishing contract with HarperCollins, with an advance of $15,000. Writers need to have a full manuscript at the time of submission. Applications also need to include a synopsis of approximately 500 words and a 200-word biographical statement.

Any Australian resident aged 18 or older is eligible to enter.

HarperCollins is Australia’s oldest and original publisher, with a literary heritage dating back to Angus & Robertson, who started publishing in Sydney in 1888. The Banjo is named after Banjo Paterson, Australia’s first bestselling author. His first collection of poems, The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, was published by Angus & Robertson in October 1895 and was an instant success. The first edition sold out in the week of publication and went on to sell over 7000 copies in just a few months.

HarperCollins Head of Fiction Catherine Milne said, “here are so many prizes for literary fiction out there, but there aren’t many unpublished manuscript prizes for people who just love to tell a great story. So, whether you’re inspired by the love of writers like Jane Harper, Kate Morton, Holly Ringland, Dervla McTiernan, Matthew Reilly, Liane Moriarty or Jojo Moyes, or you love novels like Eleanor Oliphant or The Tattooist of Auschwitz, then maybe this is the prize for you.

“Or maybe you can’t quite categorise what you’re writing, but you love it, and hope that others willas well – then again, I say to you, take this chance. What have you got to lose? All we’re looking for are stories that make us laugh, make us cry, that keep us reading late into the night, and that we can’t put down. Simple!”

Entries open: 9.00am AEDT Monday 25 March 2019
Entries close: 5.00pm AEDT Friday 24 May 2019
Shortlist announced: Tuesday 27 August 2019
Winners announced: Tuesday 17 September 2019
For more information please visit: www.harpercollins.com.au/thebanjo