Winner of Wilbur Smith Adventure Prize Announced

EMMA STYLES WINS £10,000 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE 

WITH ‘IMPRESSIVE’ AND ‘ADRENALINE-FUELLED’ DEBUT NOVEL, 

NO COUNTRY FOR GIRLS’

WEDNESDAY 18^th OCTOBER 2023, The Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation is thrilled to announce that the winner of the 2023 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, Best Published Novel, is Emma Styles with No Country for Girls (Sphere, Little, Brown Book Group). 

No Country for Girls was selected by judges Felicity Aston MBE, climate scientist, polar explorer, and expedition leader; Leon McCarron, award-winning adventurer, filmmaker, and writer; Simon Savidge, journalist, presenter, Associate Literary Curator at Story House, and founder of the popular blog and BookTube channel @SavidgeReads; and Giles Kristian, acclaimed author and winner of the 2022 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, along with a reader’s vote equating to one seat on the judging panel. 

Giles Kristian said: ‘For this prize, No Country for Girls has everything you could want –

living, breathing characters, evocative descriptions, and a journey across an unforgiving landscape. It is an adventure novel through and through.'

Leon McCarron commented: ‘I just love the sense of adventure in No Country for Girls. That road trip is written to perfection. The protagonists are great, and it is full of excitement and jeopardy. It is just what an adventure book should be.’ 

Styles’ contemporary Australian road trip emerged victorious from an incredibly strong shortlist, comprising three modern and three historical novels. 

Niso Smith, Founder, formally announced Styles as the winner at the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize Awards Ceremony, hosted at London’s Royal Geographical Society on Wednesday 18th October.

She said: ‘The entries this year were strong, the shortlist filled with remarkable yarns that push the boundaries of adventure fiction. It was a delight to have such diverse and inventive narratives to share with readers, a testament to this thriving genre and its ability to take readers on exhilarating journeys, through landscapes and experiences.

As for No Country for Girls? It’s gritty. Arresting. A story of young, female empowerment and resilience. A resounding triumph. Congratulations, Emma!’

Niso Smith continued: ‘I want to express our sincere gratitude to the committed librarians and library staff who generously volunteer their time to select the long and shortlists. We had panellists from huge inner-city public libraries to tiny community-run rural libraries, from the North and South of the UK, from coastal communities and the most inland points of the country. The award’s ethos is ‘an adventure for everyone’, so we try to make everyone a part of the process.’ 

The annual Prize has three distinct categories designed to provide opportunities to published, unpublished and young writers. It is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English. Across the categories, the Prize received over 1,000 submissions from 67 different countries.

NEW VOICES AWARD

Also announced at the ceremony were the five writers selected as the winners of this year’s New Voices award, designed to unearth and support aspiring writers as they take a fledgling idea from work-in-progress to completed manuscript.

The five hail from Ghana, the USA and the UK, and will receive nine months of mentorship and one-to-one editorial guidance from a first-rate editor.

Rachel Johnson, Head of Brand at Bonnier Books who sponsor and support the award, said: ‘It is a privilege to be part of the exciting writing journey these five writers are about to embark on.

This year, it has been particularly thrilling to see such original story ideas: from a high school science teacher trying to untangle himself from an unusual criminal gang; to the tension of ten months’ isolation in preparation for a space mission; to being dropped into a new culture with an accompanying political scandal, we have seen fresh ideas and exciting talent. We can’t wait to see how the stories develop over the coming months. Congratulations to the five winners, and good luck!’

For more information on the authors and their works-in-progress, please visit our website.

AUTHOR OF TOMORROW, in partnership with WORLDREADER

Selected by a panel of young judges, the winners of the Author of Tomorrow award for a short adventure story by writers aged 21 and under, are:

11 and Under - Prize: £100 plus £150 book tokens for your school

Winner: Crown of the Crows by Amber XinTi Wang (age 11)

12-15 years - Prize: £100 plus £150 book tokens for your school

Winner: Death & Co. by Luke Zhang (age 14)

16-21 years - Prize: £1,000

Winner: Cold Moon by Tianna Maidens (age 16)

Highly Commended by Niso Smith: 

Bear Country by Justin Schwab (age 18)

Each of the ten shortlisted writers worked with an editor to ready their work for digital publication. Then ten stories are now available to read in Worldreader’s app BookSmart, in an anthology titled Aliens, Apocalypse and the Afterlife. Worldreader is a global literacy charity on a mission to make everyone a reader.

To read the anthology, visit https://booksmart.world/kPBL.

For further information about this year’s authors click here.

Inspiration behind DON’T TURN AROUND

 The inspiration for my latest novel, DON’T TURN AROUND, came from a few different places. 

The first was an incident that occurred when I was driving to the grocery store in the middle of the afternoon. Another driver become convinced that I’d cut him off and proceeded to tailgate me for several blocks before following me into a crowded parking lot. Eventually he drove away, but though I came away unscathed, it got me thinking: if something like that could happen in broad daylight, what would happen if I’d been driving on a remote road in the middle of the night, with no crowded parking lot to turn into? The experience left me shaken, and I wanted to lean into that newfound fear and push it as far as it would go.

A second moment of inspiration came from an article about a charity offering transportation and lodging to women seeking abortions. Access to abortion has become increasingly scarce in many parts of America as clinics are forced to shut down due to state legislature. In some areas, the nearest clinic is hundreds of miles away, and some women simply don’t have the means to get there. There are charities that provide airfare and pay for accommodation, and others that rely on volunteers to women to their appointments. Not only was I was blown away by these acts of generosity – and horrified that they were needed in the first place – but it also got me thinking: what would that journey be like for those women, forced to rely on a stranger’s help when at their most vulnerable?

Primarily, though, I wanted to delve into the way that women live under constant threat to our personal safety. Activities that our male counterparts take for granted - like going for a run after the sun has gone down, or coming home alone from a night out – are for us laced with potential violence. I don’t remember the exact moment when I learned to clutch my keys between my fingers, or to turn off my headphones when walking at night, or any of the other tiny, imperceptible adjustments I make when moving through the world in order to feel safer. These are lessons we all learn at some point: that danger is lying in wait for us around every corner, and all it takes is just one small lapse in attention. One wrong turn. 

And sometimes we do everything we’ve been taught and it doesn’t matter: violence can always find us, no matter how careful we are. 

Fear is something that women live with - a constant, low-level thrum in our heads - and it’s also the unspoken burden we carry. With this book, I wanted to confront that fear head-on, and explore what happens when the threat of danger is made suddenly, shockingly real. 

Don't Turn Around by Jessica Barry (Vintage Publishing)

Two strangers, Cait and Rebecca, are driving across America. Cait's job is to transport women to safety. Out of respect, she never asks any questions. Like most of the women, Rebecca is trying to escape something. But what if Rebecca's secrets put them both in danger? There's a reason Cait chooses to keep on the road, helping strangers. She has a past of her own, and knows what it's like to be followed. And there is someone right behind them, watching their every move.

Don't Turn Around Road Trip

 The previous chapter of Don't Turn Around can be found at Books From Dusk Til Dawn. Chapter 1 can be found at A Little Book Problem. 

Chapter 3

AMHERST, TEXAS—

278 MILES TO ALBUQUERQUE

Rebecca had watched the silhouette of the city disappear in the side-view mirror until it was swallowed up by the night sky. Only then did she let herself take a full breath.

It was easier now that they were out of Lubbock. It was the first step, and the biggest.

When the Jeep had pulled up outside the house, she’d sat in the dark of their bedroom, hands folded neatly in her lap, and listened to the faint rumble of the Jeep’s engine. This was what she had wanted— what she had carefully planned— but now that it was here, she was paralyzed. Five minutes passed, then ten. They had told her the driver would wait for twenty minutes— no longer. At the fifteen- minute mark, she grabbed her bag and ran to the door. If she hesitated for even a second, she knew she’d never make it. When she stepped out into the freezing night, there was no bolt of lightning waiting to strike. No corrective zap from an electric fence. Just a girl in a Jeep, waiting for her.

Rebecca couldn’t believe how quiet the neighborhood was at that time of night. The low thrum of the engine and the distant cry of a skulk of foxes. She could hear her heart pounding in her chest as she checked the lock on the door, and the soft pad of her footsteps as she walked across the pavement. It was easy, in the end.

Still, the same worries snagged in her head. What if he comes home early? What if someone found out my plans and told him? They promised total confidentiality over the phone, but I know how people operate. No one can be trusted, especially not if there might be money involved. And with this, there would be.

Rebecca looked over at the girl. She was young: somewhere in her mid- twenties. Just a baby, really. She had expected someone older. It felt strange being driven by someone so much younger, a reversal of the natural order.

She turned her eyes back to the road. Nothing. Nothing. Silo. Nothing. Nothing. Storage unit. She felt tiny out here, like one of those paper dolls she had played with as a girl.

Nearly three years in Texas and the place still felt as strange and alien as it had the first time she’d set foot in it.

She still felt like a stranger in the place she was meant to call home.

Bookends and Biscuits is hosting Chapter 4 which is the next stop on the tour.