Montegrappa winners!

When I won the Montegrappa Prize for First Fiction at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature back in 2013, no-one knew how things would turn out: it was the first time a competition of this nature had been run in Dubai and, unlike in similar competitions in the UK, no book contract was offered. What I had won, though (aside from a marvellous trip to the London Book Fair thanks to Emirates Airline and The Inter-Continental Park Lane), was a toe in the door of top agent Luigi Bonomi in London.

Over the next year, Luigi helped and encouraged me to get my first draft of Coming Home ready for him to sell. I had a tense few weeks while we waited to hear the publishers’ verdicts – and quite a few rejections – before I was offered a three-book deal with Harlequin MIRA.

Since then, many new writers have got their start thanks to the Montegrappa / Emirates Airline Festival of Literature competition, and Luigi has seen much success bringing new writers to publication. A nice spin-off from this has meant that we now have a lovely group of authors living here in Dubai.  Here are a couple of pictures of various Montegrappa winners and runners-up taken at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2017.

Panel discussion about our paths to publication at EAFOL 2017. Left to right: Annabel Kantaria, Rachel Hamilton, Luigi Bonomi, moderator Lea Sellers, Lucy Martin, Charlotte Butterfield and Jessica Jarlvi.

Celebrating success at a client dinner with Luigi Bonomi in Dubai. From left: Montergappa Middle East’s Charles Nahhaas, Alison Titchmarsh, Jamie Bonomi, Alan Titchmarsh, Luigi Bonomi, Karen Osman, Jessica Jarlvi, Annabel Kantaria, Rachel Hamilton, Ben Miller, Charlotte Butterfield and Lucy Martin.