Lynne Allan, Chair of the Portico Library, writes:
I’m delighted to be heralding the launch of the Portico Prize
blog with the announcement of the call out to publishers for entries to this
year’s Portico Prize for
Literature.
This year’s prizes, of £10,000 each for the winners of
the fiction and non-fiction categories, will be awarded at a gala dinner in
Manchester in November 2015. The event will be hosted by Val McDermid, one of
the biggest names in crime writing, a previous winner of the Portico Prize for
Fiction, and one of the Portico’s patrons. Watch this space
for details of the date and venue!
The prize
is generously funded by the Zochonis Charitable Trust, Arts Council England and the Portico Library and is open to books published between 1st August
2012 and 31st July 2015, that are of a good literary standard, of
general interest, and set wholly or mainly in Northern England.
We’re hard at work signing up an array of esteemed judges, and
will announce the judging panel early in April.
Previous
winners of the Portico Prize, which this year celebrates its thirtieth
anniversary, include Sarah Hall (The
Beautiful Indifference), Anthony Burgess (Any Old Iron), Jean Sprackland (Strands:
A Year of Discoveries on the Beach), and Jenny Uglow (Elizabeth Gaskell, A Habit of Stories). I’m looking forward to reading a similar array of talent this
time around.
For
information about the Portico Prize, contact admin@theportico.co.uk