The Hol­lick Ar­von Caribbean Writ­ers Prize, the largest prize for emerg­ing Caribbean writ­ers, has opened for en­tries to its 2014 lit­er­ary non-fic­tion round.Award­ed each year at the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest in Port-of-Spain, the Hol­lick Ar­von Prize is an open com­pe­ti­tion for emerg­ing writ­ers liv­ing any­where in the An­glo­phone re­gion of the Caribbean and writ­ing in Eng­lish.The Prize has a to­tal val­ue of �10,000 and al­lows a writer to de­vote time to ad­vanc­ing a work in progress. In­clud­ed is a year's men­tor­ing by an es­tab­lished au­thor, trav­el to the Unit­ed King­dom to at­tend a one-week in­ten­sive Ar­von cre­ative writ­ing course of the win­ner's choice, and a cash pay­ment of �3,000. The win­ning writer will al­so have three days in Lon­don to net­work with lit­er­ary pro­fes­sion­als, host­ed by Ar­von, in as­so­ci­a­tion with Free Word Cen­tre and agents Rogers, Co­leridge and White.

The in­au­gur­al Hol­lick Ar­von Prize, award­ed for fic­tion, was won ear­li­er this year by Trinida­di­an Bar­bara Jenk­ins. Five oth­er writ­ers, from the Ba­hamas, Bermu­da, and T&T were short­list­ed. In its sec­ond year, the Hol­lick Ar­von Prize is open to emerg­ing writ­ers of lit­er­ary non-fic­tion on­ly.A re­lease from the or­gan­is­ers said the sub­mis­sion dead­line for the 2014 Prize is Sep­tem­ber 30. Writ­ers sub­mit­ting en­tries that meet the cri­te­ria will have a chance to have their work as­sessed by a pan­el com­pris­ing Hol­lick and Ar­von rep­re­sen­ta­tives, plus an agent from the Rogers, Co­leridge & White lit­er­ary agency, and two rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Bo­cas Lit Fest. The win­ner will be an­nounced at the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest in April 2014.The Hol­lick Ar­von Caribbean Writ­ers Prize is spon­sored by the Hol­lick Fam­i­ly Char­i­ta­ble Trust in as­so­ci­a­tion with the lead­ing lit­er­ary char­i­ta­ble trust, the Ar­von Foun­da­tion (both based in Lon­don) and the non-prof­it Bo­cas Lit Fest, based in T&T.

La­dy Hol­lick, Trustee of the Hol­lick Fam­i­ly Char­i­ta­ble Trust says, "The Hol­lick Fam­i­ly Char­i­ta­ble Trust is very pleased to be able to con­tribute to all the work go­ing on to sup­port and ad­vance Caribbean writ­ing. Judg­ing from year one of the Prize, it is clear that it can make a tan­gi­ble dif­fer­ence to emerg­ing writ­ers in the re­gion, and we are proud to be in part­ner­ship with Ar­von and the or­gan­is­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go's an­nu­al lit­er­ary fes­ti­val in this project."Ruth Borth­wick, Ar­von's CEO com­ments, "Ar­von was thrilled with the re­sponse to the in­au­gur­al year of the Hol­lick Ar­von Caribbean Writ­ers Prize. It was a clear in­di­ca­tion of the qual­i­ty and po­ten­tial of Caribbean fic­tion writ­ers. We are look­ing for­ward to wel­com­ing the win­ner, Bar­bara Jenk­ins, to an Ar­von cen­tre, and see­ing the range of lit­er­ary non-fic­tion en­tries in 2014."

Ac­cord­ing to Ma­ri­na Sa­landy-Brown, di­rec­tor of the NGC Bo­cas Lit Fest, "The first year of the Prize saw a tremen­dous re­sponse across the re­gion to this rare and valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty to progress one's writ­ing. The cal­i­bre of fic­tion en­tries was high and we have every rea­son to be­lieve it will be the same for lit­er­ary non-fic­tion. It is an ex­cit­ing time and we are look­ing for­ward to mak­ing con­tact with more of the very tal­ent­ed emerg­ing writ­ers who need the sup­port and recog­ni­tion that the Hol­lick Ar­von Prize of­fers."Go to www.bo­caslit­fest.com/hol­lick-ar­von-caribbean-writ­ers-prize.html to down­load an en­try form, for more in­for­ma­tion on this year's Prize and for a de­scrip­tion of what writ­ing is in­clud­ed in the lit­er­ary non-fic­tion genre.

Con­tact george.palmer@ar­von­foun­da­tion.org or tele­phone 011 44 207 324 2554 for en­quiries.