The contest will be judged by a panel consisting of two agents and one publisher, offering an even broader range of expertise and insight to the winners.

Heaven for literature enthusiasts, the annual Emirates Airline Festival of Literature that supports and nurtures a love of literature in the UAE and across the region through a programme of varied cultural initiatives is about to begin in 2022.

With anticipation among bibliophiles and readers, one of the exciting competitions for the upcoming event is the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature’s writing competition.

The competition which aims to encourage aspiring fiction writers is now open for entry. However, this year, the contest is hosting in a new format that grants three winners a one-hour session with each of the prize’s judges.

The contest will be judged by a panel consisting of two agents and one publisher, offering an even broader range of expertise and insight to the winners. The winners of the 2022 Emirates LitFest Writing Prize will get a one-hour one-to-one with each of the judges for feedback and also writing career advice.

While winning the competition does not guarantee a book deal, but the fact several of the winners have gone on to get published speaks of the prize’s career-launching potential.

So far, the Emirates LitFest Writing Prize has produced 10 internationally recognised authors since 2013, with 26 books between them and this year too, the contest aims to target budding writers.

The entries for the contest this year will be judged by literary expert Luigi Bonomi, founder of Luigi Bonomi Associates and literary expert for many of the competition’s previous winners, as well as literary agent Sheila Crowley from Curtis Brown, and Kira Jean, founder, and chief executive of The Dreamwork Collective—an independent publishing company that shares the Middle East’s most unique voices and powerful stories.

The contest is open to first-time novelists living in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia who are eligible to enter, providing they are aged 21 or older and have never published a novel before.

The theme for the entries isn’t restricted, however, it but must be fiction, in English, and should include a 400-word synopsis of the book and the first 2,000 words of the almost completed manuscript. The entries to the contest are open till December 12, 2021, with an entry fee of Dh200. The winners will be announced during the festival in February 2022.