The Margins Fellowship

2024 MARGINS FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS WILL BE OPEN FROM AUGUST 25, 2023 TO OCTOBER 15, 2023.

The Margins Fellowship shapes an environment in which emerging writers can generate new, original work, build connections, and engage in dialogue with a community of writer peers. Coming into the fellowship as part of a cohort has given past AAWW Fellows invaluable support, friendship, and a literary community that continues to shape their writing careers.

Our 2023 cohort are the amazing Erin Jin Mei O’Malley, Gigi Tewari, Hilary Sun, and Sarah Aziza!

Explore our Margins Fellowship alums here.

Through the Margins Fellowship, the AAWW offers emerging writers concrete  resources that they can take advantage of, such as access to workshops and trainings, publication opportunities, and programming opportunities in our event space. We give our Fellows  a chance to develop as curators, armed with the resources of a literary arts institution.

Margins Fellows have gone on to publish books and chapbooks with W.W. Norton, One World, Viking, Tin House, Ahsahta Press, Platypus Press, Nightboat, RADIX Media, and The Feminist Press; sign with agents at the Wylie Agency and Curtis Brown; publish their writing in Poetry, Granta, Longreads, LitHub, BOMB, and The New Yorker; and receive awards, fellowships, and residencies from Lambda Literary, Tin House, Kundiman, the Yale Series of Younger Poets, La Cité internationale des arts, the Center for Fiction, MacDowell, Believer Magazine, Submittable, and Yaddo.

Emerging writers of ALL AGES are eligible for the Margins Fellowship.

Fellowship Program

The Margins Fellowship is a year-long program. The 2024 fellowship year will run from January to December.

STIPEND: $5,000 honoraria, distributed in three parts over the fellowship year. Fellowship payment will require the completion of an IRS W-9 or W-8BEN form;

RESIDENCY: Fellows are awarded residency time at Millay Arts—an innovative seven-acre artists retreat space at the former house and gardens of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay in Austerlitz, NY;

WRITING SPACE: 24/7 access to AAWW’s space, when the space reopens. Given that time and space to write are rare in New York, the Margins Fellows will be given keys to the AAWW Reading Room and workspace;

PUBLICATION: Fellows are invited to publish work on our online magazine, The Margins;

MENTORSHIP: In the second half of the fellowship term, fellows are paired with an established writer who will meet with fellows either in-person or virtually at minimum four times during and after the fellowship year. Previous mentors have included Monica Youn, Rick Barot, Alexander Chee, Susan Choi, Carmen Maria Machado, and many more.

CAREER BUILDING: Fellows are offered access to private career meet-ups and meetings with editors, agents, and fellow writers;

GUIDANCE: AAWW Programs Manager and Coordinator will meet with Fellows’ monthly throughout the fellowship year to discuss career goals and how AAWW can help meet them;

FINAL READING: Fellows will take to the stage with their mentors for a final celebratory reading at the culmination of the fellowship year;

HEADSHOTS: We invite a photographer to take professional headshots of our fellows that they can use going forward.

Application

MATERIALS

SUBMITTABLE APPLICATION FORM

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE:  600 words max describing what you would do with the fellowship as a creative writer, artist, and curator. You will enter this into a field within the Submittable form.

WRITING SAMPLE: A writing sample that reflects a current project

  • Writing samples must be uploaded to the application form as PDFs or MS Word Documents
  • Fiction and creative nonfiction samples should be double-spaced. Poetry samples may stay true to their original formatting
  • All samples should use size 12 font
  • Previously published work is acceptable, but please do not include publication information
  • Writing samples should be no longer than the following page lengths:

Poetry: 10 pages
Fiction: 20 pages
Creative Nonfiction: 20 pages

CV: 2 to 3 pages

Incomplete applications will not be considered.

APPLICATION PROCESS

Please read our FAQ before applying. There is no submission fee to apply to the Margins fellowship.If you have specific questions about your application or eligibility, please email fellowships@aaww.org

ELIGIBILITY

Margins Fellows may not be enrolled in an academic program at any point during the fellowship year—from January to December 2023.

Fellows must reside in one of New York City’s five boroughs throughout their Fellowship year.

SELECTION PROCESS

Applicants are reviewed by a selection panel composed of AAWW staff, fellowship alumni, and distinguished writers. The panel chooses ten finalists to interview, and from those four fellows are chosen.