Arvon to support SI Leeds Literary Prize 2024 with Space to Write Bursary
18 Oct 2023 / News
Arvon to support SI Leeds Literary Prize 2024 with Space to Write Bursary for unpublished female writers of colour.
Arvon is supporting the 2024 SI Leeds Literary Prize by offering a Space to Write bursary, open to unpublished female writers of colour based in the UK.
The bursary, now open for applications, will provide the time and space for a writer to hone their project ahead of the 2024 biennial SI Leeds Literary prize for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women. The successful applicant will be awarded a place on an Arvon at Home Writing Week of their choice, to be taken by the end of March 2024.
Arvon, the UK’s leading creative writing charity, offers writing courses and events tutored by leading authors at its three residential writing houses and online. An Arvon at Home Writing Week, awarded to the successful bursary applicant, provides five days of transformative writing workshops, one-to-ones, and social gatherings delivered by two Arvon tutors via Zoom.
Helen Meller, co-director of Arvon at Home, says: ‘Arvon is delighted to support the SI Leeds Literary Prize by sponsoring a Space to Write bursary. An Arvon at Home Writing Week will offer the time and space to focus on one’s writing, and to develop craft and confidence. It is our privilege to play a role in the creative journey of the UK’s underrepresented female writers.’
The SI Leeds Literary Prize will open for entries in 2024 and aims to platform fresh and original literary voices from unpublished Black and Asian women in the UK, helping them to reach new audiences in mainstream culture.
Previous Prize winners include Suad Kamardeen, Wenyan Lu, Shereen Tadros, Amita Murray and Mahsuda Snaith. In November 2023 Peepal Tree Press will publish an anthology of writing by SI writers, The Unheard Stories edited by Saima Mir, including alumnae, judges, and patrons of the Prize.
To apply for the Space to Write bursary, writers should submit a short summary of their project (150 words), a writing sample (up to 2000 words) a short biography (100 words) and a short statement (500 words) about why they would like to be considered for the bursary to info@sileedsliteraryprize by 27 November.
