The PN Review Creative Writing Prize is an annual award offered for three consecutive years awarded for academic excellence in creative writing. It is running at multiple universities starting in the academic year 2019-2020.

Michael Schmidt, PN Review editor, has been associated with the writing programmes at Manchester, Manchester Met,Glasgow and Bolton. He notes how ‘awards and incentives are of real value to students: not only do they enhance a CV: they can also extend their reading and writing in valuable directions.’

The winner of the PN Review Creative Writing Prize at each university will receive a free one-year subscription to PN Review, a copy of the most recent New Poetries anthology (together worth more than £50) and will be listed in PN Review. Winners will have the opportunity to pitch for the PNR blog/Carcanet blog and will be invited to submit work for the magazine.

This is a fantastic prize which will allow the students to develop their writing while also gaining rewards for it.

Similar prizes have been running at Bolton University and Nottingham Trent University, from the academic year 2013-14.

Rory Waterman, the Course Leader for MA Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University, has described the importance of the prize for students in the following quote: ‘The Carcanet/PN Review Prize for BA Creative Writing and MA Creative Writing, awarded annually to our top graduates, are very special ways of congratulating our most accomplished students. In addition, though, the prizes heap encouragement on top of excellence, and provide the kind of well-earned boost to confidence most genuinely excellent younger writers need. It is wonderful to have the support of one of the world’s finest and most eclectic independent presses, who evidently share this commitment to nurturing talent and recognising literary excellence and endeavour.’


For more information, and to participate in the prize, please contact Michael Schmidt at info@carcanet.co.uk