Dear Friend,
Will you support the Andrea Badenoch Fiction Award? We are trying to recruit sponsors who will donate money to an annual award for older women writers living in the North East. Details of the award are enclosed.
Your contribution will be used to launch the award in September of this year - with publicity to eligible writers in the region and a launch event celebrating Andrea's work - and to establish a long-term fund to finance the award. This is why we are asking for single one-off donations, for the launch, as well as for an ongoing commitment in the form of annual standing order donations, which will ensure the award's long-term survival.
Any contribution you can make will be used to 'top up' an annual grant of £1,000 that has already been made available for the award as part of the Arts Council's annual writers' awards scheme in the region. New Writing North has offered to 'host' the award, but it will be managed by Andrea's family and a small group of her writer friends. Everyone involved in the Andrea Badenoch Fiction Award will be donating their time, so your contribution will be used entirely to support older women authors in the region.
Any amount will help. Two hundred people each donating £5 a year will double the value of the award. Twenty people donating £50 will add a further £1,000. A one-off donation of £10 will allow us to send details of the award to 200 eligible women.
Thank you for your attention.
Julia Darling
Steve Manchee
Jay Miller
Debbie Taylor
Margaret Wilkinson
Andrea Badenoch was a gifted writer who lived in Newcastle and produced four novels in the last few years of her life. Andrea was at the peak of her literary career when she died of breast cancer in 2004. The annual award that bears her name was established by her family and friends in association with New Writing North; funds have been raised to enable a £4,000 award to be made to women fiction writers over the age of 42, which is how old Andrea was when she submitted the manuscript of her first novel. The award will be judged by a panel made up of Andrea's friends and family.