The judges of the 2020 DRF Writers Award are Ian Rankin (Chair), Sarah Perry and Max Porter. They will announce a shortlist of three in April 2020 and the award will be presented in London in mid-May 2020.

The winner of the 2018 DRF Writers Award was Deepa Anappara for her novel Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, to be published by Chatto & Windus in February 2020, with rights already sold in 18 further countries.

The 2020 award of £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. Conditions for entry are as follows:

• Submissions should take the form of 20–25,000 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 online) 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 Republic of Ireland.
• Submissions should be accompanied by a brief synopsis and biographical note.
• Applicants who have previously submitted work for the DRF Writers Award may re-apply but the work submitted must be new.
• The winner will receive a cheque of £10,000 and each runner-up will receive £1,000.

For more information on the award and how to enter, visit deborahrogersfoundation.org.