Winners of GT Bank Dusty Manuscript unveiled

After months of carefully poring, sifting and curating over 1000 manuscripts that spanned crime, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery/thriller genre, submitted by budding writers for the Dusty Manuscript competition and pruning it further to 20 entries, the judges for the contest finally unveiled the best three winning entries on Wednesday June 13^th at the sponsors, GT bank headquarters.

Kukogho Iruesiri Samson’s manuscript, ‘Devil‘s Pawn’ won the top prize of a million naira and a publishing contract under the Farafina Breeze imprint to be distributed on the Okada Books e-platform.

Onochie Emeka Onyekwena’s manuscript, ‘The Orchid Protocol’ made it to the second position with a winning prize money of N500,000 and a publishing contract with Kachifo Ltd under their Breeze imprint.

Nneoma Anieto’s manuscript, ‘The Other Side of Truth’ came in, in the third position with the winning prize money of 250,000 and a publishing contract with Kachifo Ltd under their Breeze imprint.

Winner of the Dusty Manuscript contest, Kukogho Iruesiri Samson with GT Bank’s MD, Segun Agbaje

The top three entries were arrived at after the judges made up of Eghosa Imasuen, Yejide Kilanko, Toni Kan and Ainehi Edoro-Glines made sure the winning entries met the criteria required to stand out. Criteria such as originality, language, grammar, narrative strength, coherence, dramatic intensity, interpretation and style of writing, level of interest to the general public of the subject matter as well as the potential commercial success of the book. Throughout the selection process, the judges were not made aware of the identities of the contestants and it remained so until the winning three manuscripts/authors were announced.

First runner up of the Dusty Manuscript contest, Onochie Emeka Onyekwena with the MD of GT Bank, Segun Agbaje

Luckily, the authors of the rest of the entries weren’t particularly left high and dry. They had the opportunity to experience a two-day writer’s boot camp where they interacted with accomplished authors who trained them on polishing their writing skills, knowing the pitfalls in the publishing process and how to avoid them, the business side of publishing, reading and understanding the fine lines in contracts etc.

Organised in partnership with Okadabooks and Farafina, The Dusty Manuscript Contest is part of GT Bank’s You READ initiative, aimed at promoting reading culture and inspiring the next generation of award-winning and globally renowned authors.

Second runner up of the Dusty Manuscript contest, Nneoma Anieto and the MD of GT Bank,
Segun Agbaje

It doesn’t come as a surprise that Gt Bank is interested in exploring and providing a platform to discover hidden talents among Nigerian writers, to help revive the country’s reading culture. Like it has done in the food and drink business, the fashion industry, photography etc, GT Bank’s culture of providing the much needed platform to promote and empower hitherto neglected industries is without a doubt a commendable one, worthy of emulation.