Whiting Awards

The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2021, winners receive US$50,000. The nominees are chosen through a juried process, and the final winners are selected by a committee of writers, scholars, and editors, selected each year by the Foundation. Writers cannot apply for the prize themselves, and the Foundation does not accept unsolicited nominations. Since 2018, the foundation has also awarded Literary Magazine Prizes to US-based nonprofit publications whose audience is adult readers. Prize-winning magazines are invited to work with the Foundation over the course of three years and receive outright grants of $10,000–$20,000 in the first year followed by matching grants in the second and third years.

From the Wikipedia article “Whiting Awards”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Check the official rules of the Whiting Awards for the current eligibility window, accepted formats, residency or language requirements and any entry fee. For most established prizes the publisher submits on the author's behalf, often with a limit on entries per imprint.

If you are self-published, look for an explicit statement that independently published books are accepted, and budget for entry fees and copies for judges.