PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Grant

The PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, presented by PEN America, recognizes outstanding literary works in biography published in the U.S. during the previous year. With a prize of $5,000, this award celebrates authors who demonstrate exceptional narrative and artistic merit through scrupulous research. Since its inception, PEN America has awarded over $370,000 annually, supporting diverse voices in literature and promoting the freedom of expression.

PEN America
PEN America works to ensure that people everywhere have the freedom to create literature, to convey information and ideas, to express their views, and to access the views, ideas, and literatures of others.
PEN America Literary Awards
Founded in 1963, the PEN America Literary Awards honor the most outstanding voices in literature across diverse genres, including fiction, poetry, science writing, essays, sports writing, biography, children’s literature, and drama. With the help of our partners, PEN America confers over 20 distinct awards, fellowships, and grants each year, awarding over $370,000 to writers and translators annually.
The PEN America Literary Awards program celebrates literary excellence, encourages global discourse, champions important voices, and brings new books to life through our publication awards. From exciting new voices to underrecognized masters of their craft, PEN America honors challenging, thought-provoking, genre-defying writers.
The PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography is awarded for excellence in the art of biography. This prize of $5,000 goes to the author of a distinguished work published in the United States during the previous calendar year. The winning title is considered by the judges to be a work of exceptional literary, narrative, and artistic merit, based on scrupulous research.
All winners, finalists, and longlisters for this award are eligible to receive PEN America’s official emblems.

Eligibility

A candidate’s biography must have been published by a trade publisher in the United States between January 1 and December 31 of the applicable calendar year.
Eligible books must be written by a single, living author.
Candidates need not be U.S. residents or citizens.
Books must be works by an author about another person. Memoir and autobiography are ineligible, unless the work significantly focuses on the life of another person.
If you submit a book for this award, you may not submit it for any additional PEN America Literary Award, with the exception of the PEN Open Book Award. Please note that the PEN/Faulkner Award is not considered a PEN America Literary Award.

Ineligibility

Self-published books are ineligible.Books with more than one original author are ineligible for the PEN America Literary Awards. Authors may not submit their own books.Writers who are also current PEN America staff or interns, trustees, or chairs of Member committees are not eligible for any of the Awards and/or Grants offered by the Literary Awards Program. Additionally, all current members of the Literary Awards Committee are ineligible.