The Prototype Prize is a new, biennial prize for published or unpublished writers and artists working at the intersections of different literary and artistic forms.

The prize, which is open only to writers or artists resident in the UK or Ireland, awards £3,000 plus publication by Prototype to the best book-length project, and a second prize of £2,000 plus publication by Monitor Books to the best short-form work. Both prize-winners will also have an excerpt of their work published by frieze.

The judges for the inaugural prize are Bhanu Kapil, Tom McCarthy and Elizabeth Price, who will work alongside an editorial board from the publishers.

Fiction, poetry and non-fiction prose are all eligible, with no restrictions on style, form or subject-matter, with interdisciplinary approaches particularly welcomed. We welcome submissions of work that interrogates the boundaries of established formal, narrative and genre conventions. We request text-based work that can appear on the printed page, and are also interested in work that might be extended into other media, such as film, audio, exhibition or performance. Submissions are open to individuals and collaborative projects.

The Prototype Prize is supported by Shane Akeroyd, Sadie Coles and Emmanuel Roman, and by public funding from Arts Council England.

We are keen to encourage quality submissions, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid. They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help improve grammar, readability and check for repetition, ‘sticky’ sentences and suggest alternatives.

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