Ten Years on: the Deborah Rogers Foundation announces the 2025 Writers Award


Ten Years on: the Deborah Rogers Foundation announces the  2025 Writers Award 

●    Erica Wagner chairs a panel of three judges
●    Founded in 2015, the DRF Writers Award returns for 2025 celebrating ten years of championing new writing 
●    The winner receives £10,000 to complete first book
Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award

The Deborah Rogers Foundation announces that submissions for the 2025 DRF Writers Award will open on 1st January and close on 31st March 2025. 

The judges of the 2025 DRF Writers Award will be the renowned author and literary critic Erica Wagner (chair), the award-winning playwright and poet Inua Ellams and Natalie Haynes, the acclaimed writer, broadcaster, classicist and comedian. 

They will announce the shortlist of three in October and the Award will be presented in November 2025. 

The DRF Writers Award was established in 2015 and over the past decade has helped to launch the careers of internationally bestselling authors. 

Three previous winners of the Award will have their books published in 2025: Mathelinda Nabugodi’s non-fiction work, The Trembling Hand: Reflections of a Black Woman in the Romantic Archive will be published by Hamish Hamilton/Knopf, ‘Pemi Aguda’s novel The Suicide Mothers will be published by Virago/WN Norton and Masobe in Nigeria, and Neil Rollinson’s novel The Dead Don’t Bleed will be published by Jonathan Cape.
 

News


Judges Colm Tóibín, Deepa Anappara, Anna James and Ingrid Persaud announce the shortlist for the 2021 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award
On 1st July 2021 submissions to the DRF Writers Award closed. The winner will be announced on 7th December 2021 and shortlisted writers will be contacted by email in mid-November 2021.
Submissions for the DRF 2021 Writers Award can be made between 1st April 2021 until 1st July 2021.
The 2021 DRF Writers Award will open for submissions on 1st April 2021 and close on 1st July 2021. The next DRF David Miller Bursary will open for applications in late 2021.
The winner of the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award is ‘Pemi Aguda for The Suicide Mothers, a work of fiction. Ian Rankin (Chair of the Judges) introduced the three shortlisted authors and then announced the winner who will receive the prize of £10,000.
Judges Ian Rankin OBE (Chair), Sarah Perry and Max Porter announce the shortlist for the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. 3 are chosen out of 876 entries and a shortlist of 8.
The winner of the 2019 DRF David Miller Bursary, Prema Raj, has reported on her time spent at five different publishing companies, in Denmark, Italy, the UK and the USA.
The winner will be announced in mid-May 2020 and shortlisted writers will be contacted directly.
Submissions for the DRF 2020 Writers Award can be made between 1st June 2019 until 31st October 2019.
The winner of the inaugural Deborah Rogers Foundation Bursary Award is Prema Raj