I had the privilege of chatting with Fabia (pictured on the right or below), the founder of Jericho Prize! Enjoy reading the Q&A.
Tell me about Jericho Prize and what you do.
Of course! I love talking about what we do. The Jericho Prize is a not-for-profit UK-wide writing competition specifically for emerging Black-British writers for children. This year, we added a writer mentoring and development programme, so there are now two aspects to the project.
Everything we offer, the competition, our resources, workshops, mentoring, online writer groups, and so on, is free as we want as many writers to access the project as possible. We run the project roughly on an annual basis and try to have a different focus each year, for example, this year was picture books, but that’s not set in stone.
I had the idea for the Jericho Prize back in 2020 whilst spending a lot of time blogging about Black children’s books. I spotted a need to do more to support emerging Black children’s writers, writing particularly for very young audiences (8 years and below) who, as we know, are under-represented in UK children’s publishing along with other minoritized writers. After much head-scratching and hard work, the Jericho Prize launched in March 2021, and we haven’t really looked back!
How is Jericho Prize funded?
We’re really fortunate to be supported by public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England. The money they provide is the reason why everything the Jericho Prize offers remains free to access, including the competition. That said, Arts Council funding is not automatically guaranteed, and you have to reapply each year so we are always on the look-out for new funders who understand our vision and might want to support us down the line.
Since we launched, we’ve also been very lucky to have support in kind from several renowned publishing companies, such as Scholastic UK, Penguin Random House, and Alanna Max, and other brilliant literary organisations. Their support has been a massive help! Aside from all of that, I put in very long hours running the project, and am very grateful to my tiny team that supports me on a voluntary ad hoc basis.
Can you share what the process is like for yourself andthe judges reading submissions to finally picking a winner?
Sure! It’s always extremely exciting when the submissions start rolling in. Actually, I think it’s a mixture of excitement, tension and sheer relief – relief that writers have remembered to get their submissions in on time and the project is thankfully NOT going to flop! I don’t know why I worry so much as our inbox is always overflowing with delightful surprises, such a plethora of imaginative ideas and interesting themes. And, of course, it’s always super exciting when you spot the sparkly gems among the rough diamonds.
We have four rounds of reading: an initial sift, the first-and second-phase (longlisting and shortlisting) and then final judging. The final judges are book industry experts who decide on the winner anonymously after a couple of hours of enlightening and, often, spirited discussion about the shortlisted scripts.
My role in the judging proceedings has become more of a project management, coordinating role rather than any hands-on judging – I’ve been able to distance myself from that now that we’ve expanded. I basically make sure all the valid submissions move to the correct readers/judges at the right time and collate all the readers’ feedback and scores. Every eligible writer who enters the Jericho Prize receives written feedback from all phases of the competition which, I believe, is quite unusual for a competition to offer for free.
Honestly, all of this is quite painstaking, time-consuming manual work because I don’t have the budget for a whizzy automated submissions system. But because of my background in book publishing, specifically editorial project management, I’m used to monitoring lots of moving parts and complex spreadsheets, and I quite enjoy the organisational side of things. Consuming copious amounts of tea and cake always helps as well!
Tell us about how this year's Jericho Prize ceremony went? And who the finalists/winners are?
Our 22/23 awards ceremony included a fabulous showcase celebrating the writing journeys and work of the finalists, and it was such a joyous occasion.
I feel so proud of this particular event, not just because it’s the culmination of a year’s hard work but, also, the Jericho Prize is Black-led. This means our awards ceremony features prominently Black children’s writers in a welcoming space. It’s rare that you see a sea of Black faces at a children’s book event but at ours, you will, and that fills my heart! It was wonderful to have so many book industry people attend too!
This year’s winner, Antoinette Brooks (pictured above or to the left), won with a beautiful, authentically told picture book story called Friday Night Cake. She is an extremely talented writer and illustrator who will go very far – as will our other finalists: Paula Sampson-Lawrence, Siobhan Graham, Sebrina O’Connor and Krystal S Lowe. Watch this space!
Are you able to share anything exciting you're currently working on?
Well, now that the 22/23 project has nearly come to an end, I’ll probably take some time over the summer to rest and relax with the family. Apart from that, it will be back to the drawing board for Jericho Prize ’24 – or it might be ’25 – I’m not sure yet.
I have got lots of exciting news related to the project that I can’t yet reveal – sorry! I’m also potentially starting a new role which complements the work I’m doing at the Jericho Prize. I’d love to share but, again, it’s all top secret at the moment. All will be revealed very soon!
If you’d like to check out the 22/23 awards ceremony, watch the video below!!