Deborah Rodger Foundation
The 2025 DRF Writers Award
Applications for the 2025 DRF Writers Award are now invited.
£10,000 will be presented to a first-time writer whose submission demonstrates outstanding literary talent and who needs financial support to complete their work. The two runners-up will each receive £1,000.
- Submissions should take the form of 15,000-20,000 words of a work in progress, fiction or non-fiction, which is not under option or contract.
- Applicants may not be under contract to any publisher for any work or title in any language.
- Applications are open to writers who have not previously published a full-length book of their own prose writing (including self-published or published on-line) excluding a collection of their own poetry. They may have published short prose writing within a magazine/anthology.
- Entrants must write in the English language and reside within the British Commonwealth or Eire.
- Submissions should be accompanied with a brief synopsis and biographical note.
- Applicants who submitted work for the DRF Writers Award previously may re-apply but the work submitted must be new.
- The winner receives a cheque of £10,000 and each of the two runners-up receives £1,000.
If your submission is on the longlist you will be notified by email. The shortlist and Award announcement dates will be confirmed shortly.
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Further details of previous award winners and judges can be found below
The Judges of the 2025 DRF Writers Award
Erica Wagner (chair) is a writer and literary critic. Her first book was a collection of short stories, Gravity published by Granta in 1997. Her other books include Ariel’s Gift: Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and the Story of Birthday Letters, Chief Engineer, A biography of Washington Roebling, the man who built the Brooklyn Bridge, and most recently, Mary and Mr Eliot: A Sort of Love Story. Her poems have appeared in the TLS and PNReview and her stories have been widely anthologized. She reviews regularly for The New York Times, writes for the New Statesman and is Consulting Literary Editor for Harper’s Bazaar, UK.
She has judged many literary prizes; the Man Booker, the Orange Prize,
the Goldsmiths Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Forward
Prize. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a
Goldsmiths Distinguished Writers’ Centre Fellow.
Erica commented:
‘I’m completely thrilled to be the chair of the DRF Writers Award in 2025. This valuable award demonstrates a commitment to nurturing talent: keeping an eye out for up-and-coming writers who are making the world new is something I've always held close to my heart. To be involved in a prize like this is very meaningful to me, and I look forward to exciting discoveries.’
Inua Ellams is a Nigerian-born British poet,
playwright and curator. He has been honoured with an MBE for Services To
The Arts, and an Honorary Doctorate from University Of The Arts,
London. Inua has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the
National Theatre and the BBC. He is an ambassador for The Ministry of
Stories and The London Library, a fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature and Royal Society of Arts, and board member of The Poetry
Translation Centre, Complicité Theatre, The Royal Society of Literature
and Cheltenham Literature Festival
He is a cross disciplinary artist, an internationally touring performer,
a poet, playwright, screenwriter, graphic artist & designer. His
published books of poetry include Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All
Stars, Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales, The Wire-Headed Heathen,
#Afterhours, The Actual and The Half God of Rainfall. His first play The
14th Tale was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International
Theatre Festival. Others include Barber Shop Chronicles and Three
Sisters.
Natalie Haynes is an English writer and broadcaster and
– according to the Washington Post – a rock star mythologist. Her first
novel, The Amber Fury, was published to great acclaim on both sides of
the Atlantic, as was The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, her previous
book. Her second novel, The Children of Jocasta, was published in 2017.
Her retelling of the Trojan War, A Thousand Ships, was shortlisted for
the Women's Prize for Fiction and has been translated into multiple
languages. Her most recent non-fiction book, Pandora's Jar: Women in the
Greek Myth reached number 2 in the New York Times Bestseller chart. Her
novel about Medusa, Stone Blind, was published in 2022.
She writes for the Guardian and appears regularly on BBC Radio 4,
including nine series of her show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the
Classics. She has spoken on the modern relevance of the classical world
on three continents, from Cambridge to Chicago to Auckland.
The Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award History
The Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award was the first initiative of the Deborah Rogers Foundation, set up in 2015 in memory of the much loved and respected literary agent, Deborah Rogers. In keeping with Deborah’s special talent for nurturing and supporting emerging new writers, the Award gives £10,000 to a previously unpublished writer whose submission of 15,000- 20,000 words demonstrates literary talent and who needs financial support to complete their first book. The submitted work can be fiction, non-fiction, children’s or short stories. Applicants must reside in the British Commonwealth or Eire. The winner receives £10,000 and the two shortlisted authors £1,000 each.
The Award is biennial. Entries for the Award are invited in January for judging in November of the same year. Typically there are 800-1,000 entries. For details of how to apply, please visit the Submissions Guidelines page.
The 2023 Writers Award
Neil Rollinson was born in Yorkshire and
lives in the north east of England. He studied painting at St Martins
School of Art and has published four collections of poetry with Jonathan
Cape. He has spent most of his adult life teaching poetry at various
universities in the UK, including Bath Spa, London University of the
Arts, and Oxford Brookes.
The Dead Don’t Bleed is his first foray into writing prose. On receiving the 2023 Writers Award he commented, “I
was extremely surprised and delighted to win the award. For a first
time novelist still learning the ropes it was a great vote of
confidence. This will give me the needed inspiration to continue on
finishing and finalising the manuscript and of course the prize will
enable me now to find the necessary time to commit to it without having
to worry about other work, for a while.”
The Dead Don’t Bleed has been acquired by Jonathan Cape who will publish in 2025.
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