PEN/Phyllis Naylor Grant for Children’s and Young Adult Novelists

The PEN/Phyllis Naylor Grant for Children’s and Young Adult Novelists is offered annually to an author of children’s or young adult fiction for a novel-in-progress. Previously called the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship, the award was developed to help writers whose work is of high literary caliber and assist a writer at a crucial moment in their career to complete their novel. The author of the winning manuscript, selected blindly by judges unaware of nominees’ names, will receive an award of $5,000.

The Grant is made possible by a substantial contribution from PEN America Member Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, the prolific author of more than 140 books, including Now I’ll Tell You Everything, the 28th and final book in the acclaimed Alice series, as well as Faith, Hope, and Ivy June and Shiloh, the first novel in a quartet, which won the 1992 Newbery Medal.

On establishing the grant, Mrs. Naylor said: “We truly work ‘blind,’ with no assurance whatsoever that anyone will be interested in our final product. It takes enormous stamina and resolve and optimism to live with our characters for a year or more—and it’s my hope that the grant, modest as it is, will let the authors know that an expert panel of PEN judges has faith in the writers, admires their work, and trusts that they will be able to bring to paper what they see in their heads.”

Applications for the 2023 cycle close on June 1, 2022. Apply here.