Submissions are open for the Letras Boricuas Fellowships. Cosponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyan Arts Fund, the fellowships aim to connect and support Puerto Rican writers. This year fifteen writers will each receive an unrestricted grant of $25,000. A second cohort of fifteen writers will be selected in 2022 and all thirty fellows will be invited to gather in San Juan in April 2023. Writers may be working in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or children’s literature. Applications may be in Spanish and/or English.
Using only the online submission system, submit a personal statement, an artist statement, information about past publication, a résumé, and a work sample of 10 poems or up to 20 pages of writing by June 20. Spoken-word poets should submit 3 audio files of up to 2 minutes each. There is no submission fee. Writers must self-identify as Puerto Rican and live in either Puerto Rico or the United States to be eligible. Writers must also have a history of publication in their genre. Visit the website for complete guidelines, including more details about eligibility. The first cohort of fifteen writers will be announced in fall 2021.
Housed at the Flamboyan Foundation, the Flamboyan Arts Fund was created in partnership with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton, his renown musical. The fund works to “preserve, amplify, and strengthen the arts in Puerto Rico” and has provided support to both organizations and individual artists. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, meanwhile, aims to “build just communities where ideas and imagination can thrive” and is a major benefactor of the arts and humanities in the United States.