The Authors with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses (ADCI) Literary Prize is open to authors with a disability and/or chronic illness. Submissions must contain a disabled or chronically ill character or characters and the overall prize fund is £2,000.
A report published last year by Arkbound Foundation found that, despite some recent progress, disability remains under-represented in publishing. Although one fifth of the UK population is disabled, the report cited “a lack of authentic, realistic stories concerning people with disabilities”.
The report described how too often characters are defined by their disability or impairment which perpetuates “harmful and damaging tropes”. It also raised issues with the lack of intersectionality concerning disabled characters, and the way in which disabled writers are pigeon-holed.
Research published this month into the representation of disabled people in children’s books shows that just 10% of books published in a 12-month period featured disabled people in some way. The Reflecting Disability Study, funded by Arts Council England (ACE), also found only a narrow range of conditions were represented, and many disabled characters appeared “only in the background”.
The ADCI Literary Prize was founded in 2022 by author Penny Batchelor and publisher Clare Christian, together with the Society of Authors, to address these types of issues.
Penny writes domestic noir psychological thrillers published by Embla Books and is passionate about positive disability representation in fiction. She said:
“Culture should reflect all of us in society and throughout my life as a bookworm, disabled or chronically ill characters have been notably absent unless they were magically cured, did something miraculous, were bitter and evil, or died to provide the novel’s pathos. Clare and I are on a mission to change that.
“If, according to the charity Scope, 25% of people in the UK are disabled, then why is fiction so behind at reflecting us in all our glorious multi-facetedness? We founded the ADCI Literary Prize focusing on adult fiction because this is our area of expertise. Long term we would like to expand the prize to children’s fiction and non-fiction to celebrate all the amazing disabled writers out there and encourage the authors of the future.”
Speaking at the SoA Awards earlier this year, Cerrie Burnell, and author actor and activist, said:
“Only four per cent of authors are disabled. The deaf, disabled and neurodiverse community has always had to be fiercely optimistic.”
She added:
“We need diverse stories as urgently as we need children to fall in love with books…We have to allow disabled, deaf, neurodivergent and diverse writers to tell the stories they choose.”
The ADCI Literary Prize is biennial, alternating with the ADCI Short Story Prize, and this year will cover books published between 1 November 2024 and 31 October 2026. The winner will be announced at the SoA Awards next June.
The prize is generously sponsored by Arts Council England, ALCS, the Drusilla Harvey Memorial Fund, and the Professional Writing Academy.
