Malorie Blackman Scholarships
Full details
Malorie Blackman Scholarships
City Lit’s Malorie Blackman Scholarships for Unheard Voices provide three annual awards to fund one year’s study within the Creative Writing Department at City Lit.
The awards seek to support and encourage the creative and professional development of ‘unheard voices’.
The final award winners are selected by acclaimed writer, City Lit fellow and Patron of the School of Culture and Communication, Malorie Blackman OBE.
2025-26 Scholarships - now open for applications
We are now accepting applications for next year's scholarships. The submissions deadline is 23:59 on Sunday 2 February 2025.
The award
The award, worth up to £1,000 for each successful applicant, is to be spent on creative writing courses at City Lit within the year from August 31st 2025 to August 31st 2026, and can be used against a single course or group of courses appropriate to the award recipient’s creative and learning aims. Award recipients will have the opportunity to speak to a member of the Writing team who will advise and help organise a study plan to best support the development of their writing.
I will forever be grateful to City Lit and Malorie Blackman for selecting me to be one of the recipients of the Malorie Blackman Scholarship Award. The courses that I took during that year taught me a lot, and the award opened up new opportunities for me. It was truly a life-changing year.
The Malorie Blackman scholarship was an enormously valuable experience which helped me to develop my writing and build my confidence.
Selection criteria
• The scholarship award is open to all who have a strong interest in
writing and who demonstrate talent and potential in their writing
skills. You do not need to be a current or former City Lit student to apply for this award.
•
The award welcomes applications from ‘Unheard Voices’, and in
particular from students who identify as belonging to under-represented
groups. This includes (but is not exclusive to) those with disabilities,
people from minority backgrounds and communities, members of the LGBTQ+
community, individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and BAME
writers.
• Our Malorie Blackman Scholarships are focused on providing
support and opportunities for writers who not have an agent and have
not published a book-length work.
• The longlisting and shortlisting
process will be conducted by a panel consisting of members of the City
Lit Writing team, and will take into account 1) the quality and
potential of the writing, and 2) the extent to which the panel agrees
that the applicant meets the selection criteria.
• Award patron Malorie Blackman who will decide the final award winners from a shortlist of ten applications.
How to apply
All applications involve the submission of 1) a piece of original writing and 2) a completed application form including a statement of up to 300 words identifying how you feel you meet the selection criteria.
Your piece of original writing should be no longer than 500 words in length (for prose writing), up 40 lines (for poetry), or up to 5 pages (for scripts). You can submit multiple shorter prose or poetry pieces to make up this total. Please send your writing sample as a single PDF if possible.
Your personal statement should be up to 300 words describing your experience and how you meet the selection criteria for the scholarship. We are also interested in hearing about your learning goals and what courses, topics or subject areas you might be particularly interested in studying within the Writing Department.
You can also request a copy of the application form to be sent to you via email, or a printed copy to be posted to you, by contacting writing@citylit.ac.uk. Please also get in touch with us if you require any assistance completing the application form.
Please return your application form to writing@citylit.ac.uk no later than 23:59 on Sunday 2 February 2025, along with your writing sample.
You can also send in your application by post to: Writing Department, City Lit, 1-10 Keeley Street, Covent Garden, WC2B 4BA.
The winners will be announced in May/June 2025.
We look forward to hearing from you. Best of luck with your application.
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