May 13, 2021, 11:38am
Exciting news: the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyan Foundation’s Flamboyan Arts Fund have founded the Letras Boricuas Fellowship, which will provide unrestricted grants of $25,000 to thirty Puerto Rican writers over the next two years (fifteen in 2021 and fifteen in 2022). Applications will be open to writers of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and children’s literature based in Puerto Rico and from across the diaspora in the United States.
The goal of the fellowship is to provide writers in Puerto Rico and across the diaspora more resources and flexibility to pursue their writing, amplify their work to a broader audience, and create work that celebrates Puerto Rican life and culture. Said Carlos Rodríguez Silvestre, executive director of Flamboyan Foundation Puerto Rico, “We can’t think of a better way to honor the rich heritage and diversity of Puerto Rican literature in the archipelago and the diaspora than creating a fellowship that lets writers do what they know how to do best.”
Applications for the first cohort of fifteen fellows opens today, and will close on June 20; the first class will be announced in November. Writers interested in applying (in either English or Spanish) can learn more at the Letras Boricuas website.