The Book Industry Charitable Foundation has named two booksellers as winners of the inaugural Susan Kamil Emerging Writers Prize, which awards $12,500 to each recipient to provide the aspiring writer-booksellers with the financial support to focus on a full-length manuscript. This year's winners are:
Robin Bruce, a writer, translator, and interdisciplinary artist from Texas, living in northwest Arkansas. Her work spans fiction, poetry, hybrid memoir, screenwriting, visual storytelling, and music, often exploring themes of love, healing, community, and care in the face of limitation and change. She currently works as a bookseller at Pearl's Books in Fayetteville, Ark. Her manuscript is historical fiction.
Emily Newman, owner of Main St. Books in Monroe, Wash. They majored in comparative literature at the University of Washington and spent summers writing plays for the Columbia Gorge School of Theatre. They later taught English in Japan before returning to Washington State. Their manuscript is speculative fiction.
The Susan Kamil Emerging Writers Prize was established by journalist and author Charles Duhigg and his wife, Liz Alter, a professor of biology at California State University Monterey Bay. Binc administers the prize, which is named for Kamil, who was executive v-p and publisher of Random House when she died in 2019.
Any writer working on a full-length manuscript, graphic novel, or comic who is currently employed at a physical book or comic store in the U.S. and has been for a minimum of three months was eligible to apply.
"More than 150 aspiring writer-booksellers applied for this incredibly generous and life-changing prize," said Binc executive director Pam French. "Congratulations to Emily and Robin and our sincere gratitude to the judges who committed countless hours to reviewing the applications, Charles and Liz, and all the talented finalists." See a list of additional finalists here.