Cheshire Novel Prize 2024 - Update
Thank you to everyone who has entered our 2024 adult Cheshire Novel prize. We had an amazing 1900 entries this year from 24 countries across all genres. We gave away 341 sponsored places to writers from 12 countries.
We are currently busy reading the entries and creating our long-list. The talent this year is incredible; we are so impressed with the quality of the work. Thank you for trusting us with your words. We will take good care of it. And remember ALL who entered will get feedback no matter what. We often get asked why our feedback takes a while. This is because the feedback—although with some general comments—is specific to your novel and this takes time. You can help us by adding us to your address book and checking your spam and junk folders if you don’t hear from us by the feedback end date.
For those of you who entered the prize last year, you will be aware that we closed for entries on 1st April 2023. This year we extended the entry window to the 1st of May 2024. Unfortunately, we forgot to amend the long-list date by a month and therefore only gave ourselves a few weeks to longlist. We have therefore moved the longlist date by a couple of weeks.
We will now be announcing our long-list on 1st July 2024 at 2pm UK time.
We will ask all long-listed writers to send us an additional 15,000 words including the original 5,000 words to make 20,000 words, plus your 500 word synopsis, by midnight 3rd July 2024.
Shortlisted novels will be announced on 30th August 2024 at 2pm.
Upon shortlisting, we will invite you to send your synopsis, and full manuscript as separate documents by midnight by 1st September 2024. Any writers unable to submit the full manuscript will, unfortunately, be disqualified.
Winner Announcement will be 1st October 2024 at 2pm.
End date to receive feedback: 30th November 2024.
Our agent showcase will take place in October 2024.
You will find all of our updated information on our website and social media.
Top 100
Our Cheshire Novel Prize Snippets of our top 100 writers will be posted on our X (Twitter account) from the 20th of June onwards up to our long-listing announcement. This is where we turn the novels making the top 100 into pitches, to show our entrants how to pitch and it is also a bit of fun if you recognise your work. Please be aware however, some novels can have similar themes but where possible we try to be specific to allow you to identify your work.
Summer School 2024
Keep your eyes peeled for our Summer School writing course which starts on the 16th of September and runs for six weeks. You can choose either a Thursday evenings at 7pm or Saturday afternoons at 2pm. This is a live masterclass taught by me (Cheshire Novel Prize Founder Sara Naidine Cox)
Where other providers may charge £1000 -£2000 for courses like this, Summer School is offered at a subsidised price of £189 to all students including recordings and materials plus an agent event and an author Q&A. We even have a private chat group too. Keep an eye out for an email from us when we open registration at the end of June. This a great opportunity to learn craft and improve your work. Many of our summer school students from 2022 and 2023 have gone on to success as a direct result of the course. If you have entered the prize, you can still attend summer school. Summer School opens for registration on the 30th of June 2024.
Warmest regards
Sara Cox
Cheshire Novel prize Founder