Penguin Random House has partnered with Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, to launch The Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry, a new creative writing award for poetry for public high school students. The award will recognize a student for an original literary composition in English for poetry with a first-place prize of $10,000.
The Amanda Gorman Poetry Award is one of five creative writing awards given by Penguin Random House. Other categories include fiction/drama; personal essay/memoir; and the Maya Angelou Award for spoken word. In recognition of the Creative Writing Awards previously being centered in New York City, the competition will award an additional first-place prize to the top entrant from the NYC area. The 2022 competition launches on October 1 and closes on February 1. Current high school seniors who attend public schools in the United States, including the District of Columbia and all U.S. territories, and are planning to attend college – either a two-year or four-year institution – in the fall of 2022 are encouraged to apply.
For 28 years, the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards have awarded more than $2.8 million dollars to public high school students for their original compositions.
To apply and to read more about eligibility and rules, please visit this website.
Winners will be announced and posted on the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards website at https://social-impact.penguinrandomhouse.com/our-awards/u-s-creative-writing-awards/ in June 2022.
Amanda Gorman is the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. She is a committed advocate for the environment, racial equality, and gender justice. Amanda’s activism and poetry have been featured on the Today Show, PBS Kids, and CBS This Morning, and in the New York Times, Vogue, and Essence. After graduating cum laude from Harvard University, she now lives in her hometown of Los Angeles. In 2017, Amanda Gorman was appointed the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate by Urban Word – a program that supports Youth Poets Laureate in more than 60 cities, regions and states nationally. Gorman’s performance of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the 2021 Presidential Inauguration received critical acclaim and international attention. The special edition of her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” was published in March 2021 and debuted at #1 on the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestsellers list. Amanda appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in February 2021 and was the first poet to grace the cover of Vogue in their May 2021 issue. She was Porter Magazine’s July 2021 cover star and received The Artist Impact Award at the 2021 Backstage at the Geffen Awards. Her debut picture book, Change Sings, will be published in September 2021, and her poetry collection, Call Us What We Carry, will release in December 2021. Please visit theamandagorman.com.
