The submission process for Yorkshire’s Next Great Young Author is now closed. All submissions are currently being read. We plan to announce the shortlist in late July and a winner will be announced in late September. Many thanks to all those who have entered, it looks likely to be a very interesting reading period.
Route is being helped in this process by Victoria Price and Rebecca Pedley, the two successful applicants to our editor training programme.
Submission guidelines for our Young Yorkshire Author opening have been published.
‘As the major London publishing houses close their doors and eyes to unsolicited manuscripts this opening provides a rare opportunity for young unpublished novelists to have their work actually read and considered for publication. I hope it will become an annual event and that other regions will follow its example but, most of all, that it will provide extra motivation and inspiration for young writers in our area.’ – David Peace
We are looking for a novel or novella of between 30,000-80,000 words. Authors aged 18-30 who are living in Yorkshire should:
Submissions will be assessed by a panel of readers and shortlisted submissions will be requested to send in the full manuscript after the closing date.
The winning entry will be offered a publishing deal and will be supported editorially to turn their manuscript into a published book. This is a genuine open opportunity, thanks to the support of Arts Council England, and we look forward to receiving your submissions
Editorial Opportunity
In addition to the author opportunity, Route are offering a mentoring programme for aspiring editors/publishers. Publishing is not an easy industry to break into, so we are offering a chance for an 18-30 year to gain valuable experience by working alongside Route in this exciting project. The successful applicant will have the relevant drive and desire and will work alongside Route in the selection, editing and publishing process. (Note this is a voluntary position and will not be office based.) Applicants should:
Full details of both openings and how to submit can be found on the Route website. Click here.
Route have been supported by Arts Council England, Yorkshire to offer a golden publishing opportunity for a young Yorkshire based author, aged 18-30. Full details of this opportunity, including submission criteria and deadlines will be announced in due course, but for now we just wanted to make the tip-off that it is happening to give writers a head start.
Yorkshire is rich in literary history, punching above its weight with a long line of prominent authors. From Sterne and the Brontes, via Priestly and the angry young men to Joanne Harris and David Peace. But who will write for the next generation and what is their story? Born post deindustrialisation and now third-generation from the mass immigration of the 50s and 60s, contemporary young writers have a rich and varied landscape to draw from.
There will also be an opportunity or two for aspiring young publishers/editors in the region to get involved with the project. Full details will be published here when the full criteria is announced. Please check back.
Yorkshire has a strong network of support for young writers. Information about this support network is gathered on the Young Writers Hub – www.nawe.co.uk/young-writers-hub.html
The dealine for our open submission guidelines passed on 31 August and the photo above is what we came back to after our summer holidays. If you sent in a book proposal for A Few Good Books, then it will be in there somehwere. There’s just over 160 proposals which should keep us busy reading over the next few months. It’s our plan to make our way through them over the autumn and hopefully we’ll be able to commission some books, we’ll do our best. Many thanks for those of you who submitted. As always, it’s a very humbling experience opening those envelopes and seeing the work inside. We’ll be in touch.
Ian Daley, Editor
All stories submitted for The Route Book at Bedtime and Contemporary Short Stories have now been read. We received 340 submissions, from which we longlisted 40 stories, which is now down to a shortlist of 20. All writers who have been notified. You can see a photograph of the submission pile here.
We genuinely sorry that we couldn’t include more stories, it was a rich bunch. As always the reading process was a moving and humbling experience. Several themes emerged from the reading: there was a wealth of stories concerned with relocation after a relationship had broken down; there was also a strand of fathers with daughters coming of age and the hurt they felt when the light of their life’s attention turns to boys. Most of all the stories once again revealed the difficulties in finding and keeping love. For the first time in several years there was no explosions on trains, no terror in cities, no mistrust between different cultures on the streets. Maybe the psychological terror brought on by our former guardians is finally lifting.
Submissions stack for Route 22. If you sent in a story for The Route Book At Bedtime or Contemporary Stories category, then it will be in here somehwere. There’s 340 short stories buckling that garden table. Once again, the intense reading retreat has been both epic and humbling. June 2009
Route Blog 
