Deborah Rogers Foundation Award

A literary agent all her professional life, Deborah Rogers (1938-2014) set up her own agency in 1967, and twenty years later formed Rogers Coleridge & White with Gill Coleridge and Pat White. One of the most influential literary agents of her generation, Deborah was renowned for her taste, her loyalty and her immense generosity in the support she gave to authors. Her sudden death sent a shockwave through the world of publishing and the many writers, publishers and agents whose lives she had touched. At the 2014 London Book Fair, Deborah was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing, the first agent to have received the honour. She accepted this with characteristic modesty:

“It hardly seems fair to be given an award for what has been a lifetime of such pleasure… Those who have entrusted their work to us over the years will never know the intense pride that they have brought, and the anticipation and excitement that greets each new manuscript never palls. I have them to thank most of all.”

Deborah’s particular genius lay in identifying and supporting talented young people. The Deborah Rogers Foundation (DRF) has therefore been set up in her memory to continue to seek out and nurture that talent. The Board chaired by Lord Berkeley of Knighton, Deborah’s widower, comprises people who knew and loved Deborah, including RCW colleagues and writers Ian McEwan and William Fiennes.

An award of £10,000 will be presented to a first-time writer whose submission demonstrates literary talent and who needs financial support to complete their work:

• Submissions should take the form of 20-30,000 words of a work in progress, fiction or non-fiction, which is not under option or contract
• Applications are only open to writers who have not previously published a full length book
• Entrants must write in the English language and reside within the British Commonwealth and Eire
• Submissions should be accompanied with a brief synopsis and a short biographical note

Deadline: 31st January 2016.

The winner of the Award will be announced by Ian McEwan at the 2016 Hay Festival.

Free to enter

Apply using the form here. http://www.deborahrogersfoundation.org/submissions