PEN America’s Grants & Fellowships program: Applications now being accepted

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. The organization champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Its mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.

Founded in 1922, PEN America is the largest of the more than 100 centers worldwide that make up the PEN International network. PEN America works to ensure that people everywhere have the freedom to create literature, to convey information and ideas, to express their views, and to access the views, ideas, and literatures of others. Its strength is our Membership—a nationwide community of more than 7,200 novelists, journalists, nonfiction writers, editors, poets, essayists, playwrights, publishers, translators, agents, and other writing professionals, as well as devoted readers and supporters who join with them to carry out PEN America’s mission.

Because PEN America celebrates writers at every stage of their career, the organization takes great pride in its Grants and Fellowships program. As you may know, submissions for the 2020 cycle are currently open. Here are some of the grants and fellowships you may consider:

PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant ($2,000-4,000)
Submissions open April 1 to June 1, 2019
The PEN/Heim Translation Fund provides grants to support the translation of book-length works of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, or drama that have not previously appeared in English in print or have appeared only in an outdated or otherwise flawed translation.

PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature ($5,000)
Submissions open April 1 to June 1, 2019 

The PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature is awarded to a translator for a book-length work-in-progress translation of Italian narrative prose into English.

PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History ($10,000)

Submissions open April 1 to June 1, 2019
The PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History recognizes an in-progress literary work of nonfiction that significantly uses oral history to illuminate an event, individual, place, or movement.

PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship ($5,000)

Submissions open April 1 to August 15, 2019
The PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship is offered to an author of children’s or young-adult fiction in financial need. Developed to support writers whose work is of high literary caliber, the fellowship assists a writer at a crucial moment in his or her career to complete a book-length work-in-progress.  

If you have any further questions, please reach out to the Literary Awards Team at awards@pen.org.