The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature is not solely the domain of published authors.
The event – at the Dubai InterContinental Festival City from March 3 to 7 – also offers a rare chance for aspiring authors to shine courtesy of its Montegrappa First Fiction Competition.
The annual contest, which returns this year for its third edition, aims to unearth the next wave of talent from the region.
Writers have until January 11 to submit their entries for a chance to win a trip to the London Book Fair in April for a lunch meeting with the renowned literary agent and competition judge, Luigi Bonomi.
Launched in 2013, the competition already boasts an enviable success rate, with two of the authors who took part securing multi-book publishing deals.
“I have never known a competition to deliver so many talented writers and to have had such publishing success,” says Bonomi.
“I also think the UAE community and the festival itself is a wonderful melting pot of cultures and traditions. It is no surprise to me that, in such an evocative setting where unexpected encounters spark genuine creativity, great new authors are born.”
How it works
The competition focuses on novels rather than short stories. So if you already have ideas plotted, the competition is a perfect opportunity to flesh them out. Entrants need to submit a synopsis and 2,000 words of a manuscript, which will be read by Bonomi. The winner will be announced at a special ceremony during the book festival.
Meet the agent
The London-based Bonomi has been discovering new authors for years in his role as an editorial director for publishers Harlequin Mills, Boon and Penguin Books, before becoming a literary agent and setting up his own agency, LBA, in 2005.
“I must have read literally thousands of novels and yet I still feel a tingle down my spine when I read something that stands out,” he says.
“You can sense it from almost the first few pages – it’s the tone and the atmosphere that grips me, the fluid confidence of the writing. It makes me want to put everything aside and read that novel there and then, and then contact the author. It’s a truly wonderful feeling.”
Bonomi advises entrants to follow their muse and not submit entries based purely on commercial appeal.
“I am looking for originality, something that doesn’t mirror what others are doing but takes an original twist and runs on from there,” he states.
“I am looking for atmospheric writing that isn’t formulaic but is gripping, with a plot that captures your imagination.”
Dusting off old tales
The launch of the competition in 2013 inspired Annabel Kantaria to revisit a former work. The Dubai writer had started writing a psychological thriller, The Marmalade Murders, before setting it aside, half-finished, five years ago.
“I though the chance to really sit down with a top literary agent was a great opportunity,” she says. “So I went back to the story and worked hard and polished it to make it the best that it could possible be.”
Her efforts paid off and she was named the winner of the inaugural competition, going on to secure a three-book deal with the publisher Harlequin.
She recalls her experience working with Bonomi as nurturing yet direct. “He told me I had the talent, but I had to rethink the plot,” she says. “He wanted to make it bigger, stronger and universal. So I took his advice and I frantically replanned the novel.”
The end result is her debut thriller, Coming Home, which still contains elements of The Marmalade Murders. It is due to be published by May.
Find the time
For Dubai writer Rachel Hamilton, competing in the First Fiction Competition was a natural progression.
“I have been coming to the festival every year, helping out here and there and taking writing courses,” she says. “So when they announced there was a competition, it just felt like the next step.”
Hamilton's children's book, The Case of the Exploding Loo, finishing as runner-up in 2013.
The witty story convinced Bonomi to take her on as a client and she subsequently landed a two-book deal with Simon & Schuster.
Hamilton will return to this year’s book festival with a new book and will host a session discussing her burgeoning career.
“My advice to people is to just enter and do it,” she says.
“I honestly thought I had no chance but I thought to myself, what is there to lose?
“I think that if you have book stored in that computer or shoved in that cupboard, to take it out, work on it and enter it.
“For those who are saying I would love to write but I don’t have the time, well my advice is to just get up half an hour earlier and write. Start from there.”
• For more information on the First Fiction Competition go to www.emirateslitfest.com
