The 2020 CALEB Award is now open for entries. The categories are as follows:
- Unpublished Adult Fiction
- Unpublished Young Adult Fiction
- Unpublished Nonfiction (all genres except devotionals)
The Unpublished award is an electronic-only award, and will be limited to thirty (30) entries, ten in each category. Official rules are here.
The winner of each category will receive editing to the value of AUD 400, plus an engraved trophy. Prizes have been donated by:
- Adult Fiction: Nola and Tim Passmore, The Write Flourish
- Young Adult Fiction: Iola Goulton, Christian Editing Services
- Adult Nonfiction: Cecily Paterson, The Red Lounge for Writers
Award Rules
Entrants will submit their first 10,000 words for first-round judging, plus a 1,000-word synopsis. We ask entrants to state their genre so we’re able to match them with judges who enjoy and feel capable judging that genre.
Finalists will be asked to submit their full manuscript. Manuscripts must be between 40,000 and 120,000 words, as measured by Microsoft Word.
All submissions must be Microsoft Word .doc files (not .docx).
An entrant who signs a contract to publish a manuscript after 20 April may remain in the contest, but any entrant who publishes a work of fiction or nonfiction in the category entered in any print or online form prior to the announcement of the finalists must withdraw from the contest.
Any finalist who publishes a work of fiction in any print or online form before the CALEB Unpublished winner is announced must withdraw from the contest. This includes novels that are self-published, vanity published, or published by a traditional publisher.
The Adult Fiction and Young Adult Fiction categories are open to any writer who has not been previously published, self-published, contracted to publish or accepted to publish, in print, digitally, or online in novelette, novella, or novel-length fiction. Authors who are published in non-fiction, picture books, and short stories (under 7,500 words) are eligible to enter the fiction categories.
The Nonfiction category is open to any writer who has not been previously published, self-published, contracted to publish or accepted to publish, in print, digitally, or online in book-length fiction. Authors who are published in fiction, picture books, or essay-length nonfiction (under 7,500 words) are eligible to enter the nonfiction category.
No part of the entry may be or have been published or self-published in print or digitally, as entries must be anonymous in order to retain the integrity of the award. This means no part of your entry may be posted online (e.g. on a blog or website) or available (e.g. as a free download) until the winner is announced.
Entries must be Christian fiction or nonfiction, or fiction or nonfiction written from a Christian world view. (The Omega Statement of Beliefs is here: http://omega.rosenzfield.com/statement-of-belief/ )
Official statement of Unpublished Award Rules is here.
Please go here if you would like to be considered to be a judge.
Cost
The entry fees are:
- AUD 40 per entry for members of Omega Writers.
- AUD 70 per entry for non-members (click here to join Omega Writers, then forward your membership confirmation to caleb [at] omegawriters [dot] org and we will reply with the discount code).
If you are a current member of Omega Writers, then you will have received an email with the discount code. Enter this on the TryBooking payment page. You do not need to be logged into the Omega Writers website to claim the discount—you simply enter the correct code at TryBooking. Please note that TryBooking charges a 50 cent processing fee in addition to the above fees.
Proceeds from the CALEB Award will support the Omega Writers Conference scholarship fund.
Enter here
Go here to enter your unpublished manuscript in the 2020 CALEB Award.