PRH Partners With the James Baldwin Family to Launch New Creative Writing Award for Fiction
photo (c) Alfred A. Knopf Literary File Photography Collection Harry Ransom Center The University of Texas at Austin.
Penguin Random House has partnered with James Baldwin family to launch The James Baldwin Award for Fiction, a creative writing award for fiction for public high school students, in honor of the 100th birthday of the literary legend and civil rights champion. The award will recognize a student for an original literary composition in English for fiction with a first-place prize of $10,000.
The James Baldwin Award for Fiction is one of six creative writing awards given by Penguin Random House as part of their signature Creative Writing Awards (CWA) program. Other categories include the Freedom of Expression Award; the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry; the Michelle Obama Award for Memoir; the Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word; and the NYC Entrant Award.
Since 1993, the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards have awarded more than $2.9 million dollars to public high school students for their original compositions. In partnership with nonprofit We Need Diverse Books, the program empowers and celebrates hundreds of young writers each year and underscores Penguin Random House’s commitment supporting the next generation of readers and authors and amplifying diverse voices and stories. Creative Writing Award winners have gone on to become professional and award-winning authors.
The 2024 competition opens in October 2024, and closes on January 15, 2025 or when 1,000 submissions have been received. Current high school seniors who attend public schools in the United States, including the District of Columbia and all U.S. territories, and are planning to attend college – either a two-year or four-year institution – in the fall of 2024 are encouraged to apply. For more information and to apply, please visit this link. Winners will be announced and posted on the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards website in June 2025.
In addition to scholarships, Penguin Random House hosts a virtual development week for the Creative Writing Awards winners each summer that includes one-on-one virtual meetings with Penguin Random House editors, networking workshops, a panel about career opportunities in publishing, and fireside chats with Penguin Random House authors. The week concludes with a virtual awards ceremony.