Applications have opened for the Susan Kamil Emerging Writers Prize, administered by the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. Five aspiring writer-booksellers or creator-comic retailers will each receive $10,000 to focus on a full-length manuscript. The application period for the final year of the prize runs through April 22.
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 is eligible. Click here to learn more about eligibility and to apply.
The prize was established by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and bestselling author Charles Duhigg and his wife, Liz Alter, a professor of biology at California State University Monterey Bay. Kamil was executive v-p and publisher of Random House when she died in 2019.
This year's panel of judges includes Emma Aprile, a copy editor and a part-time bookseller at Carmichael's Bookstore in Louisville, Ky.; Gayle Brandeis, author of nine books and co-owner of Secret World Books in Highland Park, Ill.; Cal Crosby, owner of The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah; Jeanne Joesten, a retired bookseller at Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, Mich., who is still the frontlist university press buyer; Erika Mantz, Binc's communication coordinator; and Christie Roehl, a longtime bookseller who currently works for the nonprofit SME and volunteers on the Binc Program Committee.