It can be difficult for writers in the early stages of their career to write and to earn a living outside writing at the same time. To help fill this need the MMF has established up to three Morland Writing Scholarships every year. The Scholarships will be open to anyone who has been born in Africa or both of whose parents were born in Africa.
Grant
The Scholars will receive a grant of £18,000, paid monthly over the course of one year.
Scholar’s Undertaking
In return for this the Scholars will agree that 20% of whatever they subsequently receive from what they write during the year of the Scholarship will be paid to the MMF which may be used to support other promising writers and possibly to expand the Scholarship scheme in later years.
Qualifications
To qualify for the Scholarship a candidate must submit a piece of published work, or an excerpt from a piece of published work, of between two and seven thousand words to be evaluated by a panel set up by the MMF which will include MMF trustees and past participants in the Caine Prize. The Scholarships will be awarded based on these submissions although the Foundation may also wish to question certain candidates or ask for other work.
Proposed Work
The candidates will be expected to submit a brief description of the work they intend to write (ideally 200 – 500 words). It should be a new work, not a work in progress. The proposed work must be in English as must all candidacy submissions. Please also tell us in fewer than 100 words something about yourself and your background.
It is not the intention of the MMF to give editorial or publishing advice to Scholars. They will have to find their own agents and publishers although it is to be hoped that over the years the Morland Scholarships will come to be recognized as an incubator of talent. Works which relate to Africa are likely to be preferred by the judges.
Scholarship Requirement
The only condition imposed on the Scholars during the year of their Scholarship is that they must write. They will be asked to submit by e-mail at least 10,000 new words every month until they have finished their book. The Scholarship will terminate if a Scholar fails to submit the required work on time unless prior authorization has been received. The Foundation is happy to support fiction or non-fiction but not poetry, plays or screen-plays. The Scholarship is intended for writers who want to write a full-length book of 80,000 words or more.
The closing date for submissions for the first series of Writing Scholarships will be October 31st 2013. The Scholarships will be announced in December 2013 and will run for the whole of calendar 2014. The Trustees reserve the right to vary the terms and requirements of the Scholarships at their discretion.
To find out more check out the Miles Morland Foundation page.
