Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts

Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts

The Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts acknowledge, support, and celebrate writers in our nine-state region with $80,000 in awards. The genre for the 2025 cycle is Poetry.

South Arts’ Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts acknowledge, support, and celebrate the highest quality literary work being created in the American South. The State Fellowships for Literary Arts are awarded to artists with a commitment to artistic excellence as evidenced by the quality of their work.

The Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts will be awarded to writers of one creative literary arts genre each year.

Funding

The State Fellowship for Literary Arts is awarded to artists whose work reflects the best of the literary arts in the South. A national panel will select one awardee per state, for a group of nine State Fellows based on artistic excellence that reflects the array of artistic expression of the region, each of whom will receive a $5,000 award. The nine awarded State Fellows will compete for the Southern Prize for Literary Arts. Each of the nine state fellowship recipients will be required to attend the awards ceremony. The $25,000 Southern Prize will be awarded to the literary artist whose work demonstrates the highest artistic excellence, and a finalist will be awarded a $10,000 Prize. Additionally, both Southern Prize awardees will receive a two-week residency at The Writer’s Room at the Betsy, South Beach-Miami, FL.

The cohort of nine State Fellows is selected through a two-tiered selection process by a national panel. A separately appointed national panel will select the Southern Prize winner and finalist. Panelists will make their selections based on artistic excellence as reflected in the application package (writing sample and artist’s statement) that reflects and represents the array of artistic expression of the region.

Eligibility

_You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website._

• The program is open to individual artists who meet all eligibility criteria and live in the South Arts region:
  • Alabama
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Mississippi
  • North Carolina
  • South Carolina
  • Tennessee.
• The State Fellowship for Literary Arts is awarded to artists whose work reflects the best of the literary arts in the South.
• Applicants to the Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts must meet the following eligibility requirements:
  • Only one application per artist per grant cycle will be accepted.
  • Be a writer at any stage of a creative literary arts career.
  • The applicant must be the writer whose original work is represented in the submitted work samples.
  • Age 18 or Older.
  • Artists must be a legal US citizen or have permission from the Department of Homeland Security to work permanently in the U.S.
  • A permanent legal resident of the South Arts’ nine-state region for at least the prior two years (January 2023).
  • The applicant must be a current resident of the State they are applying in at the time of application and agree to maintain residency in that state until June 30, 2026.
  • Applicant must be able to prove current state residency as requested by South Arts staff.
  • Submit a complete, accurate, and properly prepared application through the SlideRoom application portal.
  • Actively practicing writer of Poetry.

Ineligibility

• Collaborations are ineligible for the Southern Prize and State Fellowships for Literary Arts.