Following the enormous success of last year’s first ever Isle Of Wight Book Awards, this year’s awards have just opened for submissions.
Like last year there are 3 categories, with the awards’ founder Hunter Davies once again judging the non-fiction books, Alan Titchmarsh resuming his role overseeing the children’s books, and this year they are joined by fiction judge Georgina Moore- publicist for some of the biggest names in literature and whose own debut novel ‘The Garnett Girls’ is based on the Island.
Last year’s competition was a roaring success with over 100 entries consisting of books published over the previous 5 years, however, for 2023, books must have been published during 2022. The authors need not live on the island, can be alive or dead but each book entered must have some sort of content connected with the Island.
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 and the Island. Anything goes really, as long as there is an Isle of Wight content.
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 4 copies of your finished masterpiece to 1 of 4 drop-off points: Medina bookshop in Cowes, Monkton Arts in Ryde, Mrs Middleton’s Bookshop in Freshwater or Babushka Books in Shanklin. Entry is free.
Medina Bookshop manager Paul Armfield says:
“1 of the joys of last year’s awards was seeing such a wide variety of entries, written by all ages and in all different formats. There was a very healthy number of self published books that held their own against other titles that had had the support of bigger publishers, and this was reflected in the three winners: a young illustrator, a poet and an historian, all of whom were either self published or with small publishers.”
This year the awards have tied up with the annual Isle of Wight Literary Festival with the prize-giving lunch being held on Friday 3rd October at the Island Sailing Club marking the festival’s opening.
