2025 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship is now receiving applications for its five-month mentorship program. 

The Emerging Voices Fellowship offers early-career writers from underrepresented communities a virtual five-month immersive mentorship program. We also actively cultivate the careers of Black writers and serve writers who identify as Indigenous, persons of color, LGBTQ+, immigrants, writers with disabilities, and those living outside of urban centers.

Through curated one-on-one mentorship and introductions to editors, agents, and publishers, in addition to workshops on editing, marketing, and creating a platform, the five-month fellowship nurtures creative community, provides a professional skill-set, and further demystifies the path to publication—with the ultimate goal of diversifying the publishing and media industries. 

The Emerging Voices fellowship will select nine fellows in 2025 and also award each a $1,500 honorarium.

 

Eligibility 

Furthermore, to be eligible:

• Applicants must be 21 years of age or older at time of application.
• Also, applicants do not need to be a U.S. permanent resident and/or citizen but must be residing in the United States at the time of applying for, and during the duration of, the fellowship.
• Applicants must be available to participate actively in all dimensions of fellowship programming, including mandatory virtual workshops, virtual gatherings, and virtual public programs.
• The Emerging Voices fellowship requires applicants to be outside of a degree-granting program at the start date (June 2025). The fellowship team considers doctoral candidates eligible if they have completed all coursework.
• Applicants cannot be a recipient of an advanced degree in fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. 
• Likewise, applicants cannot have one or more books published through major or independent publishers, university presses, or established presses, nor have a book under contract to a publisher at the time of application. Chapbooks or work published in literary journals are acceptable.
• Former Emerging Voices Fellows are not eligible to reapply.

 

Fellowship Timeline

The Emerging Voices fellowship team designs the five-month program to connect fellows with mentors and their cohort, refine their writing projects, and teach them new skills. Through the fellowship, fellows build relationships with publishing industry instructors, PEN America staff, and the broader literary community.

January 1-31: 2025 Emerging Voices Fellowship application period

May: 2025 Emerging Voices Fellows announced

June-October: 2025 Emerging Voices Fellowship period

 

Selection Criteria and Process

Given the highly competitive nature of the selection process for this fellowship, we advise using care in your project application. Additionally, though the application will be assessed as a whole, fellows will be selected primarily based on the strength of the writing sample by a committee of established writers and publishing professionals, former fellows, and PEN America staff. Therefore, make sure your entries are edited to their best quality. 

 

Finally, closely review all required materials listed below. Please be mindful of the specific application requests. Failure to follow instructions carefully will result in disqualification. Late applications will not be accepted, without exception. We also suggest you submit early to avoid technical issues. Applicants may only submit in one genre to the 2025 fellowship.

 

 

The selection decisions of PEN America will be final and not subject to review. We regret that due to the volume of applications, we will not be able to provide any individualized feedback at any point during or after the application process. General questions about the application process sent to ev@pen.org  will be answered at the discretion of PEN America

 

Applications close at 8:59pm PT / 11:59pm ET on January 31, 2025. All applicants will be notified of decisions by May 1.

 

Requirements

To apply for the Emerging Voices Fellowship, you need to submit:

 

• Artist Statement: What are your goals as a writer in the next year and in the long term? Be specific. Limit 100 words.
• Emerging Writer Statement: Why are you applying for the Emerging Voices Fellowship? How would participating in this program advance your practice as an artist? Limit 100 words. 
• Advocacy and Community Engagement Statement: PEN America champions the freedom to write through advocacy, community building, research, and public programs. What does the term “literary citizen” mean to you? How do you, and your work, exemplify the term? Limit 100 words. 
• Work Plan: Provide a detailed explanation of your envisioned project and include a tentative title. Limit 500 words. 
• Writing Sample: Provide a writing sample of up to 15 pages of double-spaced, 12-point, one-inch margins fiction or nonfiction, or 10 pages of single-spaced, 12-point, one-inch margins poetry. The manuscript must be paginated. Accepted format:.pdf.
• Professional CV/Writing Resumé
• Reference Contact Information (Name, Email, Phone Number)
• Application fee: $25

 

Apply via Submittable. Good luck!