The Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Committee invites entries for the annual Frank Collymore Literary Competition. The competition offers substantial cash prizes and entrants become eligible for other awards and grants.

Entry Procedures

Writers may submit work in any one or more of the following categories. You should clearly identify the category in which you wish your manuscript to be judged.Entrants to the competition must be citizens or permanent residents of Barbados.The same author can only win the overall first prize twice.

Categories

Poetry

Single poems are not accepted in this category, unless they are of a length to stand comparison with a collection, an epic or long narrative poem. Most entries will be collections of poems written over a period of time.

Drama

Plays, poetic works designed for performance, dramatisation or adaptations of already existing works are eligible in this category.

Prose Fiction

Short story collections (rather than single stories), novellas and novels will be accepted. Personal reminiscence, anecdotes and biography are not eligible.

Non-fiction

Autobiography, biography, travel writing and some kinds of historical or archival writing are acceptable in this category, at the discretion of the judges. The Committee reserves the right to exclude work deemed to be inappropriate, such as academic theses, literary criticism and other scholarly writing whose primary purpose is research.

The John Wickham Prize

Writers under the age of 25 at August 31, will be eligible for the John Wickham Prize, which was launched in 2001 in memory of the late editor of BIM Magazine, the first Chairman of the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment, and the Literary Editor of the Nation Newspaper.

Criteria For Selection

The works in each category should be unpublished, though the Committee may accept entries from which excerpts or single poems or short stories have been published. Entries should be original and should show awareness of the basic requirements of genre. The Committee is looking for a distinctive use of voice, a facility with and feeling for language, and an understanding of structure.

All decisions of the Committee shall be final.