This is a true story: I almost chose not to submit The Girl Who Fell From the Sky for the Bellwether Prize. I was grumpy the day it was due. Dispirited. I didn't have enough printer ink and didn't want to buy more; didn't want to go to the post office; and didn't want to send my work to be rejected. I'd had enough rejection that week: a short short rejected, and a slight by a guy (who I knew) who couldn't remember my name.
Besides, the application was a little different than others for which I had applied. I had to show "proof" of publication and explain "why" my work counted as literature of social change. It just seemed like too much work. Why bother?
I swear: I almost didn't send it in. But then I did. Thank goodness I didn't listen to myself. But now, I hope you will listen to me: if you have a novel that fits the Bellwether Prize --please send in your manuscript. The submission period runs from Sept. 1 to Oct. 2. Complete application information can be found here.
"Fiction has a unique capacity to bring difficult issues to a broad readership on a personal level, creating empathy in a reader’s heart for the theoretical stranger. Its capacity for invoking moral and social responsibility is enormous. Throughout history, every movement toward a more peaceful and humane world has begun with those who imagined the possibilities. The Bellwether Prize seeks to support the imagination of humane possibilities."
Barbara Kingsolver, founder of the Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change
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