UC Davis' graduate program in creative writing will help launch the next generation of fiction writers thanks to a $50,000 gift from New York Times best-selling novelist John Lescroart.

Using half of the gift, the UC Davis Department of English has created a new prize in creative writing, called the Maurice Prize in Fiction.

Named in honor of Lescroart's father, the $5,000 award will be given annually for the next five years to the best work of fiction submitted by students or alumni of the UC Davis Creative Writing Program who have not yet published a book. Deadline for submissions is April 15.

Lescroart said he gave the gift to UC Davis because the work done by graduate students and alumni from the Creative Writing Program matters.

"Fledgling novelists need encouragement because in fiction, particularly long-form fiction, the stakes are highest, the rewards greatest and the challenges most formidable," he said. "I am excited about the UC Davis commitment to excellence in the art of storytelling and hope that this prize will help motivate talented young writers to pursue their dreams when their odds of success in terms of early financial reward can seem so daunting."

The Maurice Prize is for a substantial work of fiction (a novel or novella) or a substantial collection of short stories. The final judge for this year's prize will be Karen Joy Fowler, author of "The Jane Austen Book Club," a New York Times best-seller in 2004.

"Literary merit will be the over-riding criterion in selecting the winning entry," said Pam Houston, director of the Creative Writing Program. "This prize will recognize and emphasize storytelling ability in any and all genres."

The remainder of Lescroart's gift will help support The Tomales Bay Workshops, a new creative writing venture that allows unpublished authors the opportunity to present their work to 40 nationally known poets and writers, respected editors and agents. The first workshop is set for Oct. 19-24.

Houston, an established, nationally respected writer who just published her first novel, "Sight Hound," developed the writing workshops this year to succeed The Art of the Wild, a UC Davis creative writing workshop that focused on writing about the environment. That program, held for nine years at Squaw Valley, was discontinued when the Sierra Nevada conference site was redeveloped into condominiums.

Literary recognition is important for encouraging new writers, Lescroart says. He credits receiving The San Francisco Foundation's Joseph Henry Jackson Award for his novel, "Sunburn," as important to his own development as a novelist.

Lescroart, who lives near UC Davis in El Macero, wrote his first novel as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley and then a second novel the year after he graduated in 1970. He did not try to publish either book until 14 years later, when, at the urging of his wife, Lisa Sawyer, he submitted the second novel, "Son of Holmes," to New York publishers. He got two offers, one in hardcover, within six weeks.

Since then, he has written 15 more novels, and his work has been translated into 16 languages in more than 75 countries. Lescroart is known best for his Dismas Hardy/Abe Glitsky series of crime novels set in San Francisco, and his latest book is "The Motive."

Houston says that, in addition to the Maurice Prize, Lescroart's support for the new workshops is crucial because it will connect good but unknown writers with influential people in the publishing world. "My first writers' conference in Park City is where I got discovered," she said.

Lescroart's gift is also important for providing added recognition to the UC Davis Creative Writing Program, Houston said.

"What I hear all the time from others is that Davis is a great unsung program for creative writing that nobody knows about," she said. "This program creates a community of student and faculty writers who support each other -- and that supports great writing."

UC Davis students and alumni interested in making a submission to the contest should send it to: Maurice Prize, care of Janie Guhin, Department of English, University of California, One Shields Ave., Davis, Calif. 95616. The winner will be announced by June 1.