Dundee book prize

It has been said that everyone has at least one book inside them. The 2004 Dundee Book Prize offers a great incentive to budding authors.

With a £6,000 cash award and the promise of publication by Birlinn Ltd, publishers of the Polygon imprint, the prize has established itself as the UK's premier award for emerging novelists. Now running for the third time, the award is for an unpublished novel on any theme and in any genre.

The first two Dundee Book Prize winning novels have both been set in the city. Andrew Murray Scott's book Tumulus detailed bohemian Dundee through the 60s and 70s to the present day and the winning novel in 2002, Claire-Marie Watson's The Curewife drew on the tale of Dundee's last execution of a witch - Grissel Jaffray in 1669.

The Dundee Book Prize is a joint venture between the City of Discovery Campaign, the University and Birlinn Ltd, publishers of the Polygon imprint.

The deadline of 31 March 2004 is the final date for submission. See www.dundeecity.gov.uk/bookprize for more information