The application process is now open for the Susan Kamil Emerging Writers Prize that is administered by the Book Industry Charitable (Binc) Foundation. Five writer-booksellers or creator-comic retailers will receive $10,000 to help them complete their full-length manuscript.

The application period runs through April 22, 2026. Writers working on a manuscript, graphic novel, or comic are eligible for the prize if they currently work at a brick and mortar book store or comic shop in the US for at least three months.

The prize was established by the husband and wife team of Charles Duhigg and Liz Alter. Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and bestselling author, and Alter is a professor of biology at California State University Monterey Bay.

“Kamil was executive vice president and publisher of Random House when she died in 2019. Her publishing career, spanning more than 40 years, began in the 1970s working in the children’s book division of Macmillan Publishers. Over those years she was known for recognizing new literary voices and introducing them to the public,” according to the press release.

Judges include Emma Aprile (copyeditor for independent press and part-time bookseller), Gayle Brandeis (author of nine books and essays on writing), Cal Crosby (owner of The King’s English Bookshop and executive director of Brain Food Banks), Jeanne Joesten (26 years at the first Borders Bookstore and Literati Bookstore), Erika Mantz (newspaper reporter and works in higher education communications and marketing departments), and Christie Roehl (Borders bookseller).