Applications are now open the Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholarship for 2020.
Scholarships of £18,000 (approx US $21,500) will be awarded to writers who were born in Africa or whose parents were born in Africa.
About the Scholarship
This scholarship is sponsored by the Miles Morland Foundation. The foundation’s focus is culture and education with a particular interest in writing. Other projects supported by the foundation include literary festivals in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Somaliland, and the Caine Prize for African Writing.
Successful fiction applicants will each receive a grant of £18,000, paid monthly over the course of the 2020 calendar year. At the discretion of the Foundation, scholars writing non-fiction, who require additional research time, could receive an additional grant, paid over a period of up to eighteen months. All scholarship recipients will also have the opportunity to be mentored by an established author or publisher.
The scholarship is intended for writers who want to write a full-length book of 80,000 words or more. To this end, the writers will be asked to submit via email 10,000 new words every month until they have finished their book.
Another, somewhat unusual, scholarship guideline is that the selected fellows are expected to donate back to the Miles Morland Foundation 20 per cent of the subsequent earnings from what they write during their scholarship year. This is not a legally binding condition but instead viewed as a ‘debt of honour’.
Applications are judged on literary merit. Proposed books can be on any subject, though the judges may show preference to works which relate to Africa.
Who Can Apply
The Morland Scholarship for Writers is open to anyone who was born in Africa or both of whose parents were born in Africa. If a writer was not born in Africa and only one of their parents was born in Africa, they are still eligible to apply provided they can prove they are a full-time African resident, defined as having spent at least nine of the past twelve months in Africa. There are no age restrictions.
The selected fellows can elect to start at any time between January and June 2020.
Writers wishing to undertake projects in the fields of poetry, playwriting, short story, academic and/or scientific research are not eligible for this scholarship.
How to Apply
To apply for the Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholarship writers must provide via email:
- A sample piece of prose between 2000 and 5000 words that has been published or offered for sale.
- A description of between 400 and 1000 words of the project they would complete if successful in their application. This must be a new work, not a work in progress.
- A brief biography of between 200 and 300 words
- A scan of an official document showing that they, or both of their parents, were born in Africa.
Applications close on Monday 30 September 2019. The successful writers will be announced in November. For full entry details visit the Miles Morland Foundation website.