“Everybody, everybody everywhere, has his own movie going, his own scenario, and everybody is acting his movie out like mad, only most people don’t know that is what they’re trapped by, their little script.” Tom Wolfe wrote this more than half a century ago, in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Since then, the world has expanded and splintered and niche-ified itself in ways even Wolfe—who was certainly the leading man in his own movie, strolling down Madison Avenue in a white three-piece suit and Homburg hat as the culture wars of the 60s raged on—might not have imagined. The AIR MAIL Tom Wolfe prizes for fiction and reportage, awarded to two of the year’s most promising authors, were born last year out of a desire to establish some semblance of togetherness in this singularly isolating age. The inaugural prizes were awarded to Italian writer Vincenzo Latronico, the author of Perfection, for fiction, and American writer Meghan Daum, the author of The Catastrophe Hour, for reportage.

The prizes are named after Wolfe, the vanguard of New Journalism—and devotee of the Montblanc Meisterstück pen—whose wryness, imagination, and flair make his name a byword for the best that fiction and nonfiction writing have to offer. And they are brought to life with the help of the master calligrapher Bernard Maisner. Each prize is accompanied by a $10,000 honorarium to put toward furthering the writers’ craft. The winners for this year’s prizes will be announced in October.

Submissions for this year’s awards, presented by Montblanc, are open! Send your ideas by July 31 to litprize@airmail.news.