Nonfiction Prizes to Know About
Especially nature writing.
This edition of the newsletter is composed of a list of nonfiction book prizes. Most of these were lifted straight from a Substack I read called SHuSH, by Kenneth Whyte.
Whyte is editor/publisher at Canada’s Sutherland House. I love his Substack. He’s an astute observer and critic of the world of publishing. Some of his number-crunching and headlining mean little to me, since I’m not Canadian, but he pays equal attention to U.S. publishing, and I’m always eager to hear savvy views on the state of the industry.
You know by now that I think New York publishing is circling the drain, and I’m on the hunt for signs. I will hurriedly say that a lot of my weird theories have been proven wrong, so I may be wrong again. You decide. Or we’ll wait and see.
I thought you’d like to be aware of the book prizes Whyte listed, plus some other contest deadlines I found in my research for this edition of The Rhizosphere.
Prizes
If you are seeking validation in the form of prizes, I wish you all the very best with this list. I hope you find one or two that work for you.
I myself may one day apply for prizes again. But my 30 years in the book biz as an author scorched me in many ways, and at the moment I don’t seek or desire this type validation for my work.
What I seek are people who love my work—who respond to it—who are moved by it—who look me up to tell me so—who leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads—and thus who become part of my reading and writing community of friends.
Ivy League
Recently I heard the marketing guru Seth Godin speak on one of his favorite subjects, how to make education equitable. He talked about how Ivy League schools get far more applicants than they have open spots. So they have a system of elimination of potential students that implies that the students who get in have more merit than those who don’t. In actuality the elimination process is veritably random.
So why don’t they have an Open Admissions process? The next student qualified for the job steps up.
The nature of these writing prizes is similar to acceptance at an Ivy League school. When a person wins a prize, they appear to be more meritorious than the people who didn’t win. In most cases, very few differences can be found among the top 10 or the top 25. I’ve judged these contests, and I know this for a fact. In the end, very little distinguishes a winner from the runners-up.
Know that before you send in your entry fee and your precious manuscript.
The Prize That Matters To Me
As you likely know, at this moment in my writing life, I am an entrepreneur as well as a writer. What matters most to me is:
How much the book or essay or post is going to help or comfort a reader and how much the reader stands to gain from it.
How many books or essays or posts sell—and how much money I make.
During a time in my past I cared about prizes and bestseller lists. No longer.
However, I have many students and friends who do care, who want to be recognized and rewarded by the #writingcommunity.
These announcements are for you.
Nonfiction Prizes from Whyte’s Substack
Zone 3 Press Creative Nonfiction Book Award (I have judged this one in the past. I know it’s a wonderful award.)
Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant of $40K
The 2024 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant of $40,000 will be awarded to as many as ten writers in the process of completing a book-length work of deeply researched and imaginatively composed nonfiction for a general adult readership. It is intended for multiyear book projects requiring large amounts of deep and focused research, thinking, and writing at a crucial point mid-process, after significant work has been accomplished but when an extra infusion of support can make a difference in the ultimate shape and quality of the work.
The application window for the 2024 Creative Nonfiction Grant is open. Applications are due April 23, 2024, via the online application form.
Find out more about the grant here.
Whiting welcomes applications for works of history, cultural or political reportage, biography, memoir, science, philosophy, criticism, food or travel writing, graphic nonfiction, and personal essays, among other categories. Again, the work should be intended for a general, not academic, adult reader. Self-help titles, historical fiction, textbooks, books primarily for a scholarly audience, and books for young readers are not eligible. Examples of the wide range of previous grantees can be found here.
Projects must be under contract with a publisher in Canada, the UK, or the US by April 23 to be eligible. Contracts with self-publishing companies are not eligible.
Writers must submit the following materials via an online application form by 11:59pm ET on Tuesday, April 23:
The original proposal that led to the contract with a publisher
Up to 25,000 words from your draft. Please submit full-length draft chapters, rather than short excerpts from across your book, to the extent the word count allows
A statement of work yet to be completed
A plan for use of funds
A signed and dated contract (please note that to be eligible, books must be under contract with a Canadian, UK, or US publisher – unfortunately, we can make no exceptions to this requirement)
A current resume
A list of grants, fellowships, or other funding received for the book
A letter of support from your publisher or editor
Each project under submission will have two first-round readers who will evaluate for substance and execution (while understanding that they are reading a work in progress). Finalists will be considered by a separate panel of judges who will evaluate for need in addition to substance and execution. Readers and judges will consist of experts in the field from Canada, the UK, and the US, and will serve anonymously to shield them from any external pressures. The grantees will be announced in December.
The Foundation will host an online information session to answer questions and offer guidance on applying for the grant. You can register to attend an info session by clicking below:
J Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards
Nonfiction authors with books under contract with a publisher might also consider applying to the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards.
Nature Writing in Particular
I want to talk to you for a minute about submitting manuscripts of nature writing. I think it’s a great idea.
I have been present through the rise of the modern American nature writing movement. Since I started writing about nature in the early 1990s, as part of a four-woman nature-writing group in Tallahassee, Florida, I’ve seen the genre rocket from being a “marginal literature” through its current status as pop literature. Right now it’s in its heyday, probably because we’re about to lose the entire freaking atmosphere of Planet Earth.
Remember the novelist Jonathan Franzen writing “The Problem of Nature Writing” in The New Yorker last August?
(A sweet response to Franzen, Discovering a deeper connection with the world through nature writers by Matt Dallied, published in Taos News on Sept. 5, 2023.)
The problem of nature writing is that the publishing industry couldn’t see the force of the genre even as it moved toward them. They can’t imagine its power. As my friend and nature writer Jan DeBlieu said to me years ago, “We are writing the human story now.”
And damn, what a sad story.
Nature Writing in Other Countries
In the 30 years I’ve been studying, reading, and writing about nature, I’ve seen the genre cross the Atlantic Ocean and ratchet its way to the top of the bestseller charts in Great Britain.
Other countries will follow suit. This is the main thing I’m saying. You can be on the frontlines of submitting nature manuscripts if you live in a country that is not the U.S. Trust me on this.
My collection of essays Wild Spectacle recently came out in Italian, for example. In Italy the genre of nature writing does not presently exist, not really.
Canada
As Whyte notes, some of the U.S. nonfiction book prizes appear to be open to Canadians. I’m particularly interested in this, because more Canadian writers than I expect enroll in my online writing courses.
Australia
The Nature Conservancy of Australia awarded a nature writing prize in 2023, but I don’t see 2024 guidelines and deadlines. The group’s Facebook page says “The Nature Conservancy Australia's Nature Writing Prize will return in 2025, to inspire and celebrate the next wave of nature writers in Australia.”
UK
Here’s information on The Rialto Poetry Competition for poems about Nature & Place. It appears to be open to anyone.
2024 Waterman Fund Alpine Essay Contest for Emerging Writers
Since 2008, Appalachia, the mountaineering and conservation journal published by the Appalachian Mountain Club, and The Waterman Fund have joined to sponsor an annual essay contest for emerging writers.
Writers who have not published a major work of fiction or narrative nonfiction on topics of wilderness, wildness, or the ethics and ecology of environmental issues are eligible. The Waterman Fund provides generous prize money of $3,000 for the first-place essay selection and $1,000 for a runner-up.
The deadline is March 1, and here’s the link to submit.
Writing the Landscape
Please complete this form to apply for the Writing the Landscape residential short course led by Gretchen Henderson at Oak Spring Garden Foundation. This course will take place Monday, October 7, 2024 - Friday, October 11, 2024. I found this one on Submittable and you can too. Use the word “Environmental” in the DISCOVER tab.
Waterston Desert Writing Prize 2024
Submission Period is Tuesday, January 2, 2024, through Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at 11:59PM.
Nonfiction writers who illustrate artistic excellence, sensitivity to place and desert literacy with the desert as both subject and setting. The award supports literary nonfiction writers who are completing, proposing, or considering the creation of a book-length manuscript. It is recommended the writing sample submitted is part of the proposed project or closely represents it in content and style.
I found this one in Submittable.
Other Opportunities
You may consult the Poets & Writers’ Writing Contests, Grants & Awards database for other opportunities for support and recognition.
Also check Submittable. If nature writing is what you do, search for “Environmental” under the DISCOVER tab.
March Lecture
The March lecture for members will be held the first Tuesday in the month, March 5, 2024, from 7-8 Eastern Time. I’ll send the Zoom link to you in early March.
The topic is “Market Your Book Hand to Hand.”
A recording will not be made available.
Membership in The Rhizosphere can be obtained by becoming a paid subscriber at any level.
My Writing Courses
All writing courses are paused while I finish a book manuscript. I have given myself 6 months, but the book is in the final editing stage, so I may be done sooner than that. I will let you know when live-via-Zoom courses begin anew. Thank you for your interest.
Serenbe
Thanks to Art Farm at Serenbe, a community near Atlanta, these 16 folks got an immersive, in-person week in creative nonfiction and memoir, “Write Your Own Story.” The week was brilliant. I arrived home last Friday evening, ready to get back to my own writing life.
I believe that writing i governed by supply and demand and that right now the supply far outruns the demand. For that reason, I have not been submitting through traditional channels. These two paragraphs from the post say it all.
The nature of these writing prizes is similar to acceptance at an Ivy League school. When a person wins a prize, they appear to be more meritorious than the people who didn’t win. In most cases, very few differences can be found among the top 10 or the top 25. I’ve judged these contests, and I know this for a fact. In the end, very little distinguishes a winner from the runners-up.
Know that before you send in your entry fee and your precious manuscript.
See, this is one more example of your kind and generous spirit, Janisse. Searching for these resources individually is tedious. Those of us still in the early stages need to enter contests, I think, in order to gain some validity. So ... thank you for this ample offering! (P.S. Love Silas' photo!)