We are delighted to announce The Spread the Word Life Writing Prize in association with Goldsmiths Writers'Centre.

Competition Rules

Entries should be original works of life writing of no more than 5,000 words. The word count will be checked and entries longer than 5,000 words will be disqualified. There is no minimum word count.

For the purposes of the Prize, Life Writing is defined as non-fiction and should be based on a significant portion from the author’s own experience. Traditional biographies, where the piece is only about the experience of someone else, are excluded.

Writers only submit one entry each. Multiple entries by the same author will result in only the first entry being considered for the Prize and any additional entries disqualified. Writers who have previously won or been highly commended in the Life Writing Prize are excluded from entering; otherwise, previous entrants may submit.

Entries must be the original, previously unpublished work of the entrant. Graphic novel-style entries, where drawings or photographs accompany text, are welcome. Entries can be self-contained pieces of life writing, or the first 5,000 words of a longer piece of work.

The Life Writing Prize is open to writers aged over 18 and resident in the UK who are emerging writers, which means they have not previously published in print a full-length work. We define a full-length work as, for example, a complete work of fiction or non-fiction over 30,000 words.

Entries that are simultaneously submitted elsewhere are welcome – but please let us know as soon as possible if a piece is to be published elsewhere or has won another prize so we can disqualify it from the Life Writing Prize.

The winner will receive £1,500, publication on Spread the Word’s website, two years'membership of the Royal Society of Literature, and a development meeting with an editor and an agent. Two highly commended entries will receive £500 and two mentoring sessions, a development meeting with an editor and an agent, and be published on the Spread the Word website.