Official announcement
Submissions Are Now Open for SCBWI-BI’s Eighth Undiscovered Voices Anthology
Once again SCBWI British Isles plans to help fresh, new voices in children’s literature find agents and publishers through its Undiscovered Voices project.
Submissions will be accepted online at www.undiscoveredvoices.com from now until 18th July 2021 via an online submissions process. There is no submissions fee, but only unagented and unpublished members of SCBWI living in the UK and Europe (writing in the English language) are eligible. ‘Unpublished’ means you have not had a book (including a picture book, novel, non-fiction book or collection of short stories) accepted for publication or currently published in any country.
The Undiscovered Voices anthology will include at least twelve fiction extracts – from early readers to young adult novels – from SCBWI members in the UK and EU. The anthology will be published in January 2022 and sent free of charge to editors and agents whose focus is children’s literature. The book is produced with the financial support of Working Partners Ltd, a London-based company that creates series fiction.
Authors and illustrators from the seven previous anthologies have received publishing contracts for more than 400 books and have been nominated for or won more than 160 literary prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize, Branford Boase Award, Blue Peter Award, the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award, and more than 30 regional awards.
What You Need to Submit:
- The first 4,000 words of a completed novel for children/teens. Picture book texts and nonfiction work are not accepted.
- The target age range of your book, choosing from 5–8 year olds, 9–12 year olds and Young Adults (YA).
- A 75-word synopsis of your story.
- A 50-word bio written in the third person.
You may not resubmit any extract from a novel you submitted for consideration in previous Undiscovered Voices anthologies – even if it has been significantly revised.
Before you submit, please review the complete submissions eligibility and rules.
Judges
Four UK literary agents and three editors comprise the stellar judging panel for Undiscovered Voices 2022:
- Davinia Andrew-Lynch, literary agent and the founder of boutique agency ANDLYN
- Megan Carroll, literary agent at Watson, Little Ltd
- Sarah Davies, founder and agent at Greenhouse Literary Agency
- Jane Griffiths, editorial director at Penguin Random House Children’s Books
- Sarah Levison, senior commissioning editor for fiction at Farshore Books
- Yasmin Morrissey, commissioning editor at Scholastic
- Jo Williamson, literary agent at Antony Harwood Ltd
Honorary Chair
Patrice Lawrence, an award-winning writer for children, teenagers and adults, is the honorary chair for Undiscovered Voices 2022. Her books include Orangeboy, (shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award and winner of the Bookseller YA Prize and Waterstones Prize for Older Children’s Fiction), Indigo Donut (winner of the Crimefest YA Prize and shortlisted for the Bookseller YA prize), Rose, Interrupted and Eight Pieces of Silva (winner of Woman and Home Teen YA, the Jhalak prize for writers of colour and the Crimefest YA Prize). All four books have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal. She was a 2020 Costa Book Awards judge and is a judge for the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award for Radical Fiction.
For more details on how to submit, tips for writers, blogs from previous writers featured in the anthology, and to sign up for news and updates about Undiscovered Voices, visit www.undiscoveredvoices.com