Creative Nonfiction Prize
About the SCMF-FPP Sandra Carpenter Prize for Creative Nonfiction
The First Pages Prize (FPP) partners with the Sandra Carpenter Memorial Fund on its Creative Nonfiction Prize. Sandra was a board member and a pivotal early champion of the First Pages Prize. She supported emerging writers in countless ways. FPP submissions qualify for this prize if they are an American writer identifying as a woman and their writing is a short- or long-listed entry of creative nonfiction. The American woman writer can be living abroad. The Sandra Carpenter Prize for Creative Nonfiction awards one winner with $750, a tailored edit of their manuscript, and an agent consultation. All qualifying FPP entries are automatically considered.
The First Pages Prize was created five years ago in collaboration with the Stockholm Writers Festival. In 2020 the prize became its own nonprofit entity with the mission to discover, recognize and encourage emerging voices through the annual First Pages Prize award. In four short years, the First Pages Prize has awarded over $25,000 USD in prize packages to 27 emerging writers in 7 countries.
Discover all the winners of the 2021 First Pages Prize in the video below. And follow this link to meet our previous SCMF recipients.
“I knew then that I needed to do some tough love in terms of my own work. I printed out the 40 or so pages … and quickly, I figured out the problem: I couldn’t let go of some writing that I loved, but that no longer was relevant to the book. So I began chopping. It felt good.”