The Wilbur and Niso Smith Foundation
On Thursday evening I had the good fortune to attend a literary award ceremony at the gorgeous, Stationers' Hall in Blackfriars. The awards are dedicated to adventure books only, which is bloody marvellous. Who knew such an thing existed? Well it does and it is pretty special. The Wilbur and Niso Smith Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to “empowering” young writers from across the globe, “championing” the adventure writing genre and the promotion of literacy.
Their flagship programme is the annual Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, which is open to all adventure writers, writing in English. This years winner was A Necessary Evil, by Abir Mukherjee, which sounds amazing and has been added to my reading list.
They also run a prize for unpublished adventure writers. The winning author receives a publishing deal with Bonnier Zaffre. How cool is that?
Finally, they have the Author of Tomorrow, a brilliant young writers prize with some amazing shortlisted authors.
Wilbur and Niso Smith have created something really special here. An opportunity to improve literacy across the globe and recognise a genre of books that are often overlooked in awards ceremony. It was a terrific night. Here are some bad pics. I had to crop them and take out the row of heads in front of me.
Follow @Wilbur_Niso_Fdn and #adventurewriting for more info.
Congratulations to all the winners!
