Tony Lothian Prize 2019 - submissions wanted

News - Prizes Tuesday, 30th April 2019

£2,000 prize for a proposal for a first biography


The Biographers' Club is calling for submissions to the £2,000 Tony Lothian Prize, given for a proposal by an uncommissioned first-time writer working on a biography.

The 2019 judges are Alex Clark, journalist and broadcaster; Lindsay Duguid, critic and judge of the Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction; and Catharine Morris, who works at the TLS in the fields of biography and memoir.

Proposals should be no more than 20 pages (unbound), including synopses, 10-page sample chapters (double-spaced, numbered pages), CV and note on the market for the book and competing literature. Send hard copy by post to: Ariane Bankes, E6 Albany, Piccadilly, London W1J 0AR (tel 07985 920341). The deadline is Friday 30 August.

Two past Tony Lothian winners have books out soon: John Woolf (2017) with The Wonders: Lifting the Curtain on the Freak Show, Circus and Victorian Age (O'Mara, 2 May); and Sarah Watling (2016) with Noble Savages: The Olivier Sisters - Four Lives in Seven Fragments (Cape, 6 June).