CALEB Awards – Call for Judges

It is almost time for the 2023 CALEB Awards from Omega Writers. CALEB stands for Christian Authors Lifting Each other’s Books. The CALEB Award:

• Supports excellence in Australasian Christian books by encouraging and educating writers, regardless of genre.
• Encourages excellence in Australasian Christian books by recognising and rewarding our best writers across a range of genres.

The CALEB Award will open for entries on 1 April 2023, so if you’re an unpublished Christian writer from Australia or New Zealand, it’s time to polish your manuscript!

The categories for the 2023 CALEB Award are:

• Unpublished Adult Fiction
• Unpublished Young Adult Fiction
• Unpublished Adult Nonfiction

In order to run the CALEB Awards, we need judges.

Who can judge?

Anyone! Well… almost anyone. We’re looking for writers and/or keen readers who can read and judge the first fifty pages of between four and ten entries between 1 May and 18 June. This is a contest for Christian writers, so ask that judges agree with the Omega Writers Statement of Faith. Entries are provided as Word files, so you will need to read on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or Kindle device. All we ask is that you judge each entry fairly, according to the judging criteria. You can judge any category you haven’t entered (so if you enter Adult Fiction, we’d love to have you as a judge for Young Adult Fiction or Nonfiction).

Can I volunteer to judge if I’m entering the CALEB Awards?

Yes! Judging is a great way of giving back to the Australasian Christian writing community. If you’re entering the Nonfiction award but also read fiction, then we’d love to have you judge Young Adult or Adult Fiction. If you’re entering a fiction category (Adult or Young Adult Fiction), then we’d love to have you judge Nonfiction or the other fiction category. If you’re not entering the CALEB, then we’d love to have you judge whatever category you like!

What do judges have to do?

First-round judges will have approximately two months to judge between three and ten entries in the category and genre of their choice (so if you hate reading young adult romance, we’ll do our best to ensure you don’t get any romance entries. If you can only judge three entries, we’ll send you three. If you can judge more, we’ll send you more). The Unpublished contest is the first 10,000 words of the manuscript, plus a 1,000-word synopsis. Depending on how fast you read, judging should take between 30 and 60 minutes per entry. Those judging the Unpublished contest will be asked to provide written feedback to support their scores, and this feedback will be given to the entrants. Feedback is one of the main reasons to enter an Unpublished contest, so we do ask that judges give fair, considered, and prayerful feedback. Final-round judges will have approximately two months to pick a winner from three finalists. They will be asked to read the full manuscript (entries are capped at 120,000 words).

INTERESTED? CLICK HERE TO VOLUNTEER!