Over 60 books have now been entered for the first ever Isle of Wight Book Awards which the three judges – Alan Titchmarsh, Joanna Trollope and Hunter Davies – consider an amazing achievement for the Island’s first ever such book awards.
Hunter Davies suggests,
“It is three times the number we expected. Has Covid helped?
“During all the horrible, boring, dreary Lockdowns perhaps folks on the Island have been sitting at home going scribble, scribble, scribble…?”
Don’t miss the deadline
The deadline for entry is coming soon, on 5th March 2022. Entry forms, which must be filled in, are available on the Website.
The shortlists will be announced on 5th August and the winners will be announced at a Grand Literary Lunch on the Island in September – exact date and venue to be announced – to which the public are invited.
Three categories of awards
There will be three categories of awards – for nonfiction, fiction and children’s books.
Three distinguished local sponsors are generously contributing to the lunch and the prize money: Hovertravel, The Isle of Wight Music Festival and estate agents, Hose Rhodes Dickson plus help and support from the Medina Bookshop in Cowes and Monkton Arts in Ryde.
Must have a connection to the Island
The authors need not live on the Island, can be alive or dead or middling, but each book entered must have some sort of content connected with the Island.
For this first year of the awards only, books published in the last five years can also be entered; so dig them out or contact those you might know who has published any local books recently. In future, the annual awards will be restricted to books published in the previous year.
Self published books
Self published books are allowed; in fact, actively encouraged as one of the aims of the awards is to help people who perhaps have never written a book before to write about themselves, their lives, their interests, the Island.
Anything really, as long as there is an Isle of Wight content.
How to enter
If you have already had, or about to have, the thrill and pleasure and intense satisfaction of actually producing your very own book on any subject connected with the Island, fill in the entry form available on the Website, then drop in three copies of your finished masterpiece to Medina bookshop in Cowes. Entry is free.
“Everyone has a book in them”, says Hunter Davies. (He has so far published 102).
For full details of the rules, details of the awards and entry forms, please visit the Website.
News shared by Claire on behalf of Isle of Wight Book Awards. Ed
Image: Chris Spiegl under CC BY 2.0
