PEN American Center has partnered with digital and television news network Fusion to establish the inaugural PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize. The $10,000 prize will be awarded annually to a “promising young writer of an unpublished work of nonfiction that addresses a global and/or multicultural issue.” Writers under the age of thirty-five who have published at least one nonfiction piece in a national periodical are eligible. The submission deadline is February 27.

Using the online submission manager, submit an original nonfiction manuscript of 8,000 to 80,000 words, along with a resume or CV that includes publication history, and a $35 entry fee. All entries will be read anonymously. Visit the PEN website for complete guidelines.

“Fusion is committed to supporting the next generation of journalists and writers,” said Fusion Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer Daniel Eilemberg. “We are thrilled to partner with PEN to reward excellence in literature and journalism while promoting free expression.”

The judges for the inaugural prize are distinguished writers Roxane Gay, John Freeman, and Cristina Henríquez. Gay is the co-editor of PANK magazine, and the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, and Bad Feminist. Her memoir Hunger will be published next year. Freeman is the former president of the National Book Critics Circle, editor of Granta magazine, and the author of The Tyranny of Email, How to Read a Novelist, and most recently Tales of Two Cities: The Best of Times and Worst of Times in Today’s New York. Henríquez is the author of three books, including The Book of Unknown Americans, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2014.

For over nintey years, PEN American Center has worked to protect and celebrate freedom of expression through writing. PEN runs numerous programs to support writers and confers over $150,000 in literary awards each year.

The winner of the PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize will be announced this spring, and will be honored at the PEN Literary Awards Ceremony in June. Questions about the prize can be directed to [email protected].

This week, write about a time when you were out of your element, immersed in a community or culture that you felt was very different from your own. Observe your own behavior as an anthropologist would. Write about how this relocation and disorientation affected the way you reacted to the people around you, and caused you to reflect on yourself.  

This week, have one of your characters become disillusioned with football (or another major sport) and inspired to invent a new sport. The possibilities are endless. Think of what the objective will be, whether or not it will be team-based, what sort of equipment or arena will be necessary, and so on. Imagine a world in which this new sport catches on and becomes more popular than any other sport in history.