Applications are now open for the 2024–2025 Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowships. If you are a resident of New York City, this is the perfect chance to apply for this year-long fellowship.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, the Center for Fiction is the only nonprofit literary organization in the U.S. solely dedicated to celebrating fiction, and we work every day to connect readers and writers. The Emerging Writer Fellowships offer grants, editorial mentorship, and other opportunities to early-career New York City-based practitioners who are at a critical moment in their development as fiction writers.
During the one-year fellowship period, fellows receive a grant of $5,000, opportunities for manuscript editing and meetings with editors, authors, and agents, along with access to write in the Writers Studio, two public readings, inclusion in an anthology, a professional headshot, and more. See full details here.
Submission Guidelines:
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- Applicants must be current residents of one of the five boroughs and must remain in New York City for the entire year of the fellowship.
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- Students in degree-granting programs are not eligible to apply.
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- Applicants can be of any age, but must be in the early stages of their careers as fiction writers and will not have had the support needed to achieve major recognition for their work. “Emerging writer” is someone who has not yet had a novel or short story collection published by either a major or independent publisher, and who is also not currently under contract to a publisher for a work of fiction. Eligible applicants may have had stories or novel excerpts published in magazines, literary journals or online, but this is not a requirement.
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- If at any point during the judging process an applicant signs a contract for publication or accepts an offer to study in a degree-granting program, he or she must alert the Center immediately to have the application pulled from consideration.
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- Please submit a fiction writing sample, not to exceed 7,500 words, as a double-spaced Word document (.doc or .docx). The submission must include page numbers. The writing sample may be either a novel excerpt or one complete short story. If you write primarily “flash fiction” or “short shorts” (1,000 words or less) you are permitted to submit multiple stories as long as the total word count does not exceed the previously stated limit. Please do not include any personal or identifying information on your writing sample. Writing samples containing this information will not be read.
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- When your submission has successfully uploaded, please email a PDF or jpeg scan showing proof of residency to submissions@centerforfiction.org. A New York driver’s license or non-driver’s ID card is the preferred proof of residency. A PDF of a current utility bill, bank statement, lease/rental agreement, or recent pay stub may also be used to show residency. If you are a full-time resident of New York City but do not have any of these items, please e-mail submissions@centerforfiction.org to discuss other proof of residency that may be provided.
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- Do not submit application cover letters. Instead, include your mailing address and phone number in the email with your proof of residency. Please do not include any other information unless absolutely necessary, such as questions or comments relating to your eligibility or the submission process.
Deadline: May 31, 2024
Apply here.
The 2024–2025 Fellowship cohort will be announced October 2024 and the fellowships will begin in October 2024 and end in October 2025. Good luck to all applicants!
