Are you a budding crime author looking for that big break? Stylist magazine has teamed up with publishing house Faber and Faber to launch their Crime Fiction Competition and first prize is to get your first novel published along with a £5000 advance. To enter you need to send in the first 6000 words of your book for judging.

Ruth Rendell photo by Tim Duncan.

Baroness Ruth Rendell CBE (pictured), who has written over 60 crime novels and is the creator of Inspector Wexford, heads up a judging panel that includes bigwigs from the crime fiction industry as well as Stylist’s editor Lisa Smosarski. Although it’s a women’s magazine, you don’t need to be a woman to enter but your protagonist does need to be female.

You also need to submit a 300-word outline of your book, a 250-word biography and, of course, the work needs to be totally original. The runner up will receive a three month writing course worth £1750 at the Faber Academy led by author Dreda Say Mitchell. If you win, you’ll be in good company in the Faber stable – alongside PD James, Kazuo Ishiguro, 12 Nobel Laureates and six Booker prize-winners.

Closing date is 12 July 2012, so get typing! For all the small print and an entry form, visit this website. If you win, please come back and let us know. Good luck!