Scholarship America invites applications for the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards for High School Seniors in the USA in 2023.
Penguin Random House is passionate about encouraging the next generation of readers and authors and promoting diverse voices and stories. The award is for writing with a strong, clear voice by authors who are daring, original and unafraid to take risks.
Worth of Award
Awards will be distributed as follows:
- $10,000 Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word
- $10,000 Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry
- $10,000 Fiction/Drama
- $10,000 Michelle Obama Award for Memoir
Seventy-five (75) Honorable Mention recipients will receive a “Creativity Kit” gift from Penguin Random House.
In recognition of the Creative Writing Awards previously being centered in New York City and as an extension of its longtime work with local schools there, an additional first-place prize of $10,000 will be offered to the top entrant from the NYC area.
Eligibility
Applicants to the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards Program in Partnership with We Need Diverse Books must:
- Be current high school seniors at a public high school in the United States graduating Spring of 2023
- Be 21 years of age and under
- Plan to enroll in an accredited two-year or four-year college, university, or approved vocational-technical school Fall 2023
- Submit one original literary composition in English in one of the following genres of poetry, spoken word, fiction/drama or personal essay/memoir.
- All submissions must be typed, double-spaced with a minimum 12 point font size and no longer than 10 pages.
- All submissions with multiple pages must be numbered with a page number and total number of pages (Ex. 1/3, 2/3, 3/3).
- A four-page minimum is recommended for the fiction/drama genre.
- Spoken word entries must upload a typed entry along with an emailed audio format file.
- Only one entry per student may be submitted and considered.
How to Apply
- All submissions must be typed, double-spaced with a minimum 12 point font size, and no longer than 10 pages.
- All submissions with multiple pages must be numbered with a page number and total number of pages (Ex. 1/3, 2/3, 3/3).
- A four-page minimum is recommended in the fiction/drama genre.
- All uploaded entries must be clear and legible.
- You may submit only one entry to the competition.
- All entries must be original works.
Deadline: February 1, 2023 by 3:00 pm CT.