Entries for The Orwell Prizes for Political Writing and Political Fiction must be submitted by the publisher. Publishers can submit up to five books for each prize.

For The Orwell Prizes for Journalism, Exposing Britain’s Social Evils and Reporting Homelessness someone involved in the creation of the work must be responsible for entering it. This may be the author, journalist, publisher, agent, editor or an awards administrator.

For all our Prizes, the person making the submission will be asked to sign a disclaimer on behalf of the author committing to abide by the rules and attesting that the entry is the author’s own work.

Entrants should always make sure their work is eligible before submitting an entry to the Orwell Prizes. The rules for each prize can be found here.

Here are a few examples:

➣ The Orwell Prizes are run annually. Entrants should ensure their submitted work is published within the eligibility period of the year for which they are submitting.

➣ Self-published work is not ineligible for The Orwell Prizes. This includes items such as blogs and public relations pieces, or books where the author is the publisher or where the book is published by a company set up by the author solely for the purpose of publishing that book.

➣ All submitted work must be wholly the original work of the entrant or that of a small, credited and identifiable team. Please check the prize rules for more eligibility information on team entries.

➣ If the entrant is not the primary credited journalist or author of the work submitted, it is not eligible. This includes:

▫ Subsequent news coverage written by others about a story or investigation that the entrant originally broke.

▫ Profiles, interviews, or articles written or produced about the entrant by another journalist or team.

➣ The Prizes focus on work published in the UK and Ireland. Each prize has requirements related to this focus. Check the prize rules for the specifics of each prize.

The information on this page, including the above examples, is subordinate to the complete rules listed here.

The page explains what our independent judges will be looking for. Consider if your work is suitable for these prizes and how to put your best foot forward.

Authors and journalists may only submit one entry per prize, however entrants may enter multiple of The Orwell Prizes in the same year provided they are eligible for each prize and there is no significant overlap between the material entered for each award.

The Orwell Prizes for Political Writing and Political Fiction are for books. For Political Writing this may include non-fiction books, pamphlets, diaries, memoirs, letters and essays. For Political Fiction, this may include novels, short story collections, novels for children and young adults and graphic novels.

The Orwell Prizes for Journalism, Exposing Britain’s Social Evils and Reporting Homelessness prizes are open to journalistic work. Work may include writing (online or print), video content (broadcast, documentary, digital video), audio content (radio, podcasts, audio) and multi-media (interactive webpages, social media).

If you are a secondary school student in full-time education in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales or an international student studying from a British Curriculum, jump over to The Orwell Youth Prize page for more information about the prize for you!

JOURNALISM, EXPOSING BRITAIN’S SOCIAL EVILS AND REPORTING HOMELESSNESS

These are the three Orwell journalism prizes.

The Orwell Prize for Journalism rewards reportage and/or commentary across the full spectrum of commentary, analysis, and news reporting.

The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils focuses on original, insightful, and impactful reporting on social issues in the UK (e.g. poverty, housing, education, disability, welfare, and the impacts of government policy). This prize aims to bring underreported social injustices to national attention and support sustained investigations.

Both of these prizes are open to all eligible journalists.

The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness is awarded for reportage and/or commentary on homelessness. This prize is open to early career journalists who are in the first eight years of their journalism careers. It aims to encourage reporting – whether person-centred, data-driven or policy-led – about homelessness, its causes and initiatives that could bring an end to it.

Entrants are encouraged to prioritise the prize which best relates to their work. The Orwell Prize for Journalism has a broader scope so if your entry is suitable for the specific aims of The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils or The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness, we recommend submitting your work to the most relevant prize.

Each prize requires different items to be submitted.

The Orwell Prizes for Political Writing and Political Fiction require a single book. A complete submission will consist of the completed entry form including a digital version of the book (e-book or PDF), and one hard copy of the book sent to the Orwell Foundation office. Postage details can be found here.

For the purposes of our three journalism prizes – The Orwell Prize for Journalism, The Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils and The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness – an item is a single piece of journalistic work, such as an article, video or podcast. Each item submitted should be shared as a single complete file (PDF or Word document) or a single URL weblink. URLs linking to multiple items or files will not be accepted.

For the Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness a complete submission will consist of a minimum of one item and a maximum of three items in total.

For the Orwell Prizes for Journalism and Exposing Britain’s Social Evil a complete submission will consist of a minimum of three items and a maximum of four items in total.

The eligibility criteria applies equally to all items. If you have three suitable items and a fourth related item that isn’t eligible, don’t include it.

MAKE SURE YOUR ITEMS ARE COMPLETE AND ACCESSIBLE

If you are uploading your items or book as a PDF, be sure to check it is complete.

Using the “Print to PDF” function on a web article can sometimes result in portions being cut-off or obscured. This can be caused by ad banners, pop-ups or sidebar elements overlapping the main article. Make sure nothing is missing, particularly at the tops and bottoms of pages, before uploading your file.

For the journalism prizes, submitting work as a Word Document is acceptable. If you are unable to resolve issues with a PDF, please consider this option.

If you submit work via weblinks, all URLs must be completely accessible and do not require a subscription or log-in to access. This includes BBC Platforms and websites where creating an account would be free. Many websites, particularly podcast and video hosting sites, require a user to sign in. Spotify for example requires a sign-in if content is marked as explicit or otherwise restricted. URLs should remain accessible throughout the judging period.

If a judge cannot view your submission directly upon clicking the link, the entry may be deemed incomplete or ineligible.

LARGER FILES

For larger items, like video and audio, you may opt to share a URL linking to a file-sharing platform. The aforementioned URL accessibility requirements equally apply to file-sharing platforms.
Here are some examples of platforms that you could use:

• • Google Drive: Ensure link sharing permissions are set to “Anyone with the link can view”. You can find Google’s instructions on how to do this, via the “Share a file or folder publicly” tab on this page.
  • Dropbox: Create a “Link for viewing” by following the instructions on this Dropbox page.

WeTransfer is NOT suitable unless you have an unlimited subscription without an expiry time.

URLs linking to multiple items or files will not be accepted. They should link to a single item so that it is readily apparent what piece the entrant wishes to have considered.

QUICK CHECKLIST BEFORE YOU SUBMIT

• Have you read the prize rules?
• Have you considered the criteria in choosing what to submit? And are you entering the right prize for your work?
• Are any files you are going to upload complete? Or, if you are using a URL, is it accessible, non-expiring, free of paywalls and does not require a subscription or log-in to access?

Unlike industry awards, we have no entry fees and entrants don’t have to pay to attend our Prize Ceremony. Publishers who are shortlisted for either book prize are asked to make a contribution to the cost of promoting the shortlist and winner.

Panels of Judges are appointed each year and published on the Foundation website. The judges are appointed by the Director and Prize managers, subject to approval by the Board of Trustees, with the aim of creating panels with a wide range of views and experience.

The Orwell Foundation also appoints a Chair of Judges with equal voting rights to other panellists.
Orwell Prize judging panels are independent. They are asked to put aside their own political preferences, and consider the entries solely on how far they meet the Prize criteria.

Early in the summer, the judges decide on a set of finalists (approximately eight per prize), which is published on the Foundation website and widely publicised. The winners are announced at the Prize Ceremony in June.

The Orwell Prizes do not announce longlists.

All the Orwell Prizes typically open in November each year. Closing dates and eligibility periods are announced with the prize launch and vary between prizes.

You can enter each prize here, read the rules here, and read about our key milestones here.

All entrants will receive an update via email when the shortlists are announced in mid-May, unless they opt out. You can also sign up to our newsletter or follow us on social media for the latest information.

Unfortunately, the judges are unable to provide individual feedback on entries due to the number of submissions that are made. However, every entrant to The Orwell Youth Prize is entitled to individual feedback from our network of volunteer readers.

Most of our events are open to the public and free to Friends of The Orwell Foundation. Check our events page for up to date information.

If you have an idea for an event, or would like to propose a speaker or a judge please contact us.
The Orwell Youth Prize is always looking for experienced writers and researchers to provide individual feedback to young writers. Find out more about becoming a volunteer reader.

The Orwell Foundation is administered by a small team based at University College London. Vacancies are advertised on our website.