Deborah Rogers Award 2027

Put together by the TypeTak team for writers working on a first book. Checked against the Deborah Rogers Foundation's submission guidelines on November 2, 2026. Read them in full before you apply.

The Deborah Rogers Award gives £10,000 to an unpublished writer so they can finish their first book. It's run every two years by the Deborah Rogers Foundation, set up in 2015 in memory of the literary agent Deborah Rogers. Entries for the 2027 award close at midnight GMT on November 24, 2026.

At a glance


Deadline	November 24, 2026, midnight GMT (window opened September 29)
What to send	15,000–20,000 words of a work in progress, a synopsis and a bio, in one document
What kind of book	Fiction, non-fiction, children's or YA, or short stories
Who can enter	Writers living in the Commonwealth or Ireland who haven't published a book-length prose work
Entries	One per writer
Prize	£10,000 to the winner, £3,000 to each of two shortlisted writers
Judges	Bernardine Evaristo (chair), Naomi Ishiguro, Ben Markovits
Results	Longlist August 2027, shortlist September 2027, winner after that
AI	Work must not be generated or planned, wholly or in substantial part, with AI

Who can enter

You have to live in a Commonwealth country or in Ireland, and write in English. Most questions are about what you've published before. The foundation's FAQ covers the common cases:

You've published...	Can you enter?
Nothing yet	Yes
Short stories or essays in a magazine, journal or anthology	Yes
A poetry collection	Yes
A play, film or TV script	Yes
A self-published book	No
A book-length prose work in any language, print or digital, including with a small press	No

Having an agent is fine. Being under option or contract to a publisher is not. You can't resend work you entered in an earlier round, but you can enter new work.

How to prepare the document

Everything goes in one file, in this order:

Extract: 15,000–20,000 words of the work in progress.
Synopsis: up to 500 words.
Biographical note: 200–300 words.

Use a 12-point font with double spacing, and save it as a Word document or PDF named name_title, for example JaneDoe_TheGreatNovel. Don't put your name on the extract or synopsis pages. The foundation removes the bio and renames the file so the reading is blind.

Check the extract length in the word counter before you upload. Since the award is meant to help you finish the book, the bio is a good place to say briefly where the book stands and what the money would let you do. Standard manuscript format covers the page layout.

Before you upload

The form asks you to confirm five things:

You haven't sent this work to the award before.
You aren't under option or contract.
You live in the Commonwealth or Ireland.
You haven't published or self-published a book, apart from a poetry collection.
The work is your own and hasn't been generated or planned, wholly or in substantial part, with AI or other automated text-generation tools.

The foundation can ask how a submission was written and disqualify entries it thinks break the AI rule. We compare AI wording across contests in Can you use AI to write a book?. You'll get an automated reply when your entry goes through.

Get feedback in TypeTak before you apply

The judges read 15,000–20,000 words with your name removed, so the pages have to do all the work. It helps to know where they lose a reader before you send them. TypeTak is an AI writing editor where you write alongside an agent, and its feedback reads your pages and points out what to fix.

What to fix, and how. Press Feedback on the editor toolbar and it reads the passage on screen and answers in this order: Overall impression, Evaluation by aspect, Strengths, Areas to improve. Each point in the last part says what the problem is, why it trips the reader and how to fix it.
An extract that agrees with itself. The Consistency card checks the passage against its own timeline and logic and against the details you've noted, with any conflicts at the top.
Repeated words caught on the page. The Style card highlights repeated words, sentence habits and clichés right in the text.

You make the changes yourself. To keep feedback from leaving line edits in the text, turn off Fix & markup with feedback under Settings > Agent.

The award's rule is about work generated or planned with AI, and the foundation decides what breaks it. Read the guidelines, and ask the foundation if you're unsure how feedback fits, before you use it on the pages you send.

FAQ

When is the Deborah Rogers Award 2027 deadline?

Midnight GMT on November 24, 2026.

How many words do I send?

15,000–20,000 words of the work in progress, plus a synopsis of up to 500 words and a 200–300-word bio.

Can I enter if I've self-published?

No. Self-published writers aren't eligible. A published poetry collection is the only book-length exception.

Can I enter from the US?

No. You have to live in a Commonwealth country or in Ireland.

Can I enter if I have an agent?

Yes, as long as you aren't under option or contract to a publisher.

When is the winner announced?

The longlist comes out in August 2027 and the shortlist in September 2027, with the winner announced after that.

Revision log

2026-11-02 — First published

Sources

Official: Deborah Rogers Foundation — Submission guidelines Announcing the Deborah Rogers Award 2027
Listing: Writers Online — The Deborah Rogers Award 2027
Related posts: Novel and short story contests 2026–2027 The First 5K Novel Prize Standard manuscript format Can you use AI to write a book?