E. J. Corbett Mentorship

ENTRY RULES:

Important: Please first refer to eligibility criteria to determine if a book is eligible

1. Entrants must submit a max 500 word synopsis and the first 10,000 words of the manuscript together with a coversheet.
2. A non-refundable entry fee of $25 per entry is payable. Payment must be cleared by 5pm on 4 December 2024 AEDST.
3. Entrants may only submit one entry.
4. By submitting an entry, the entrant agrees to be bound by the rules of the contest.
5. HNSA welcomes all entries submitted in good faith and reserves the right to refuse entries for any reason  including those that may harm the reputation of HNSA.
6. Requests for confirmation of receipt of entries will not be answered.

7. Worldwide copyright will remain with the author.
8. Where First Nations characters and/or history is depicted in the manuscript, the author should seek advice from appropriate First Nations cultural advisers.
9. The HNSA will take all reasonable steps to ensure the judging will be fair and unbiased. The judge’s decision is final and no debate or correspondence will be entered into.
10. The judge will not comment on individual entries.
11. The judging criteria are excellence in writing, potential and clarity of the project, and skilful use of historical research.
12. The entrant warrants:
    a) their manuscript is their original creation;
    b) their manuscript has not previously been published (see Eligibility Criteria 9)
    c) their manuscript has not been wholly or substantially created by the use of generative AI technologies (AI grammatical and spelling tools are acceptable);
    d) their manuscript is not defamatory;
    e) their manuscript does not infringe any existing copyright or licence or any other third-party rights; and
    f) their entry form contains true and accurate information; and
    g) their manuscript does not use or disclose the personal information of a living person for the purposes of the Privacy Act 1988
13. Each entrant agrees to indemnify HNSA for any loss or damage resulting from any breach of the warranties above and acknowledges that HNSA may, in its absolute discretion, not award the mentorship in the event of a breach of the warranties above.

Eligibility criteria:

1. Authors must be citizens or residents of Australia or New Zealand at the time of entry.
2. Manuscripts must be historical fiction written for young adults as per the definition set out in the rules.
3. The manuscript must be at least a first draft of a completed manuscript of no less than 20,000 words.
4. All forms of non-fiction including narrative non-fiction and memoir are ineligible.
5. Picture books and graphic novels are ineligible.
6. The books do not have to be set in either Australia and/or New Zealand, or feature the history of those countries.
7. Books must be in English.
8. Co-authored books are ineligible.

9. Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant and must not at any time have been published, self-published, broadcast, or published online on any website or forum (save for a closed private forum), or have won or been placed in any other contest.
10. The entrant must not have published any prior novels or novellas (whether historical fiction or not) either by self-publishing or through a traditional publisher. Short stories and/ or essays are exempted.
11. Entries that do not meet the eligibility criteria will be removed from contention and not sent to the judge.
12. Entries that do not strictly meet the entry format guidelines will be removed from contention and not sent to the judge.
13. Current members of the HNSA Management Committee, contest administrators, sponsors, and judges are ineligible to enter.

Entry format

1. The 10,000 word manuscript excerpt must be in English, typed in a separate Word (.doc or .docx file) document, A4 format, 12 Point, Times New Roman font, double spaced, with pages numbered.
2. A 500 word synopsis and cover sheet specifying a word count, book title and the author’s name must be included in the same Word document containing the manuscript excerpt.
3. The file should be named with the protocol ‘authorsurname_title.docx eg Atwood_AliasGrace.docx

4. If the narrative involves multiple time periods, a word count must be provided for each time period on the coversheet. If majority of the narrative is not set 50 years or more in the past then the manuscript is ineligible.
5. The title must appear at the top of each page of the manuscript excerpt.
6. Entries will not be returned, so please keep a copy.
7. No corrections can be made after receipt.
8. Work must be presented professionally, formatted according to the contest rules and spell-checked.
9. Entries that do not strictly follow these guidelines will be eliminated immediately.
10. Tickets are non-refundable