When everyone is heralding doom and gloom for the publishing industry, there’s a beacon of hope in prizes which are poised and ready to discover new writing talent.

Here are two awards championing new voices, sifting through the best of what’s out there and giving us the heads-up on some of the best new fiction around:

The Dayne Oglivie Prize is a new literary award for emerging LGBT writers from Canada. The winner of the $4000 prize announced this week was Amber Dawn (pictured) for her début novel, Sub Rosa.

The judges described Amber as ‘an impressive, heart-stopping talent,’ and we concur; we’ve had our eye on her since reading ‘To All the Butches I Loved Between 1995 and 2005’ –her contribution to the collection Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme.

Honor of distinction went to Mariko Tamaki for her short graphic novel, Skim, which she created with her cousin Jillian Tamaki. You may remember Jilllian’s awesome hand-embroidered covers for Penguin Classics.

A brand new prize on the horizon is the SI Leeds Literary Prize. It’s open to Black and Asian women writers in the UK who have some unpublished fiction ready to see the light and patrons include Bonnie Greer and Bidisha.

The awards of up to £2000 will be presented in October at the Ilkley Literature Festival, where the winner and two runners-up will read extracts from their work. They’ll also receive professional consultancy on their work and possible publication from Peepal Tree Press.

We’re looking forward to seeing their picks of the next new literary sensations. In the meantime, tell us: which début writers have you discovered recently?

Mekella Broomberg