Writing Competition: The Hazel Rowley Prize for a First-Time Biographer

$5,000 Prize for Best Proposal from a First-time Biographer

The Hazel Rowley Prize rewards a first-time biographer with: funding (the $5,000 award); a careful reading from an established agent; a year’s membership in BIO (along with registration to the annual Biographers International [BIO] conference); and publicity for the author and project through the BIO website, The Biographer’s Craft newsletter, etc. The prize is a way for BIO—an organization of biographers, agents, editors, and biography devotees—to advance its mission and extend its reach to talented new practitioners.

Eligibility

The prize is open to all first-time biographers anywhere in the world who are writing in English, who are working on a biography that has not been commissioned, contracted, or self-published, and who have never published a book-length biography, autobiography, history, or work of narrative nonfiction. Biography as defined for this prize is a narrative of an individual’s life or the story of a group of lives. Innovative ways of treating a life (or lives) will be considered at the committee’s discretion. Memoirs, however, are not eligible.

Applicants should:

Complete the on-line entry form. (Please note that the form can be tricky. When filling out one’s address, for example, “city” and “state” go in the boxes above the words, not below.)

Upload a proposal, writing sample, and resume in one document totaling no more than 20 pages. The proposal and writing sample should be double-spaced, with 12-point type and standard margins. The proposal should include a synopsis, a proposed table of contents, and notes on the market and competing literature. The document must be a PDF. Please include your name as part of the file name of the PDF that you submit.

Sign the online entry form by checking the box affirming your understanding of the rules and procedures.

Submit $25 for the application fee using a major credit card or by check. Payment instructions are on the entry form.

You will receive an acknowledgment of your entry within several days. If you do not, please contact Michael Gately.
Terms and Conditions

The deadline for entries is March 1. Application forms will be available after September 1. Receipt of all applications will be acknowledged by email. Thereafter, only applicants on the final shortlist for the prize will be contacted. Formal announcement of the winner will be made at the annual conference.

In submitting this prize entry form, you agree to all the terms and conditions of the BIO Hazel Rowley Prize. You affirm that the proposal you are submitting is not (and will not be) under consideration by any publisher until after the winner has been announced in May 2024. Only one entry per applicant. In submitting this entry form, you affirm that you are the sole author (or, if co-authored, authors) of the proposal. You also affirm that in the event of winning the prize, you will make your best effort to market your proposal for publication as a book and that you will acknowledge BIO’s support in any publications that result from the Rowley Prize. BIO also requires that you submit a brief paragraph reporting on your progress within a year after receiving the Prize. All decisions by the judges are final.

More information here.