Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards 2026 ($10,000 prize) – YOA

Deadline: January 15, 2026

Applications for the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards 2026 at the moment are open. Penguin Random House is captivated with encouraging the subsequent technology of readers and authors and selling various voices and tales. For over 30 years, Penguin Random House has supported this mission by the Creative Writing Awards, which in 2019 entered into an progressive new partnership with nationwide advocacy nonprofit We Need Diverse Books.

Creative Writing Awards winners have gone on to grow to be skilled and award-profitable authors. Since 1993, this program has awarded greater than $2.9 million {dollars} to public highschool college students for authentic poetry, memoir/private essay, fiction/drama, freedom of expression prompts, and spoken-phrase compositions. This signature program continues to empower and rejoice tons of of younger writers annually.

Awards

• Awards shall be distributed as follows:
  • $10,000 Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word
  • $10,000 Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry
  • $10,000 James Baldwin Award for Fiction
  • $10,000 Michelle Obama Award for Memoir
  • $10,000 Chinua Achebe Award for Freedom of Expression
• Up to at least one hundred (100) Honorable Mention recipients will obtain a “Creativity Kit” present from Penguin Random House.
• In recognition of the Creative Writing Awards beforehand being centered in New York City and as an extension of our longtime work with native colleges there, we will even provide an extra first-place prize of $10,000 to the highest entrant from the NYC space.
• Penguin Random House hosts a digital growth week every summer season for the Creative Writing Awards winners. This immersive expertise consists of one-on-one digital conferences with PRH editors, networking workshops, a panel on profession alternatives in publishing, and hearth chats with PRH authors. PRH and WNDB will even amplify and rejoice winners by way of social media and native media outreach. The six scholarship winners are inspired to actively take part within the skilled growth week and interact in media outreach.

Eligibility

Applicants to the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards Program in Partnership with We Need Diverse Books should:

• Be present highschool seniors at a public highschool within the United States graduating Spring of 2026;
• Be 21 years of age and beneath;
• Plan to enroll in an accredited two-yr or 4-yr faculty, college, or authorized vocational-technical faculty Fall 2026;
• Submit one authentic literary composition in English in one of many following genres of poetry, spoken phrase, fiction, private essay/memoir, or e-book bans immediate;
• All submissions should be typed, double-spaced with a minimal 12 level font measurement and not than 10 pages;
• All submissions with a number of pages should be numbered with a web page quantity and whole variety of pages (Ex. 1/3, 2/3, 3/3);
• A 4-web page minimal is advisable for the fiction style;
• Spoken phrase entries should add a typed entry together with an emailed audio format file;
• Only one entry per pupil could also be submitted and regarded;
• Freedom of Expression entries should write concerning the supplied matter.

Application

The application will shut January 15, 2026 at 3:00 PM Central Time or as soon as 1,000 functions are acquired.

Click here to apply

For extra data, go to Creative Writing Awards.