2015 Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholarships for African Writers (£45,000 Prize)

Application Deadline: October 31st 2015

Applications are now open for the 2015 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship for African Writers.

It can be difficult for writers, before they become established, to write and to earn a living outside writing at the same time.

To help fill this need the MMF aims to each year award three Morland Writing Scholarships for fiction and one Morland Scholarship for non-fiction.

Eligibility

• The Scholarships are open to anyone writing in the English language who was born in Africa or both of whose parents were born in Africa.

Benefits

Grant

• Scholars writing fiction will receive a grant of £18,000, paid over the course of twelve months. Scholars writing non-fiction will receive a grant of £27,000, paid over the course of eighteen months.

Mentoring:

• Each of the winners will be offered the opportunity to be mentored by an established author or publisher who will give help when sought on the progress of their book and comments as to how it succeeds in meeting its objectives.
• Participation in this scheme will be voluntary. It is not the intention of the MMF to act as editor or a publisher.
• Scholars will need to find their own agents and publishers although it is to be hoped that over the years the award of a Morland Scholarship will come to be recognised as an incubator of talent.

Qualifications

• To qualify for the Scholarship a candidate must submit a piece of published work, or an excerpt from a piece of published work (written in English), of between two and five thousand words to be evaluated by a panel of readers and judges set up by the MMF.
• The Scholarships will be awarded based on these submissions although the Foundation may also wish to question certain candidates or ask for other work.
•  The work submitted will be judged purely on literary merit. It is not the purpose of the Scholarships to support academic or scientific research, or works of special interest such as religious or political writings.
• Submissions or proposals of this nature do not qualify.

Scholarship Requirement

• The only condition imposed on the Scholars during the year of their Scholarship is that they must write.
• They will be asked to submit by e-mail at least 10,000 new words every month until they have finished their book.
• The Scholarship will terminate if a Scholar fails to submit the required work on time unless prior authorisation has been received.
• The Scholarship is intended for writers who want to write a full-length book of 80,000 words or more.
• If the first draft of the book is completed before the year is up, payments will continue while the Scholar edits and refines their work. 

Proposed Work

• The candidates should submit a brief description of the work they intend to write (200 – 500 words). It should be a new work, not a work in progress. The proposed work must be in English, as must all submissions.

Important Dates:

• The Scholarships will be announced in December 2015 and will run for the whole of calendar 2016. The Trustees reserve the right to vary the terms and requirements of the Scholarships at their discretion.

For Enquiries: MMF@milesmorlandfoundation.com

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the 2015 Miles Morland Writing Scholarships for African Writers