The Hurston Wright Foundation offers an award for minority writers called the Hurston/Wright LEGACY Award. Given in a variety of categories, including debut fiction, nonfiction and poetry, the LEGACY Award recognizes the accomplishments of published African-American authors in the United States.
To be eligible, authors must have published their work within the last calendar year. An application must be submitted, with a fee of $25, as well as the book that is being considered. These materials should be submitted by the publishing company's LEGACY representative.
The top prize for this honor is $10,000 for the winner. Finalists are each given $5,000. Awards are given out after a three-person committee reviews the applications and selects winners in each category.
A perfect opportunity for an up and coming fiction writer to win a cash prize, the Paul Zindel First Novel Award provides winners with a book contract as well as a $1500 cash prize. The program is aimed at encouraging diversity in literature, but is not solely for female minority writers. The program started in 2002 and was named after Paul Zindel, a noted fiction writer for younger readers.
Sponsored by Hyperion Books for Children and its imprint Jump at the Sun, the award is geared toward encouraging more diversity within the pages of books for younger audiences. Submissions for the award can be sent directly to the Paul Zindel First Novel Award at Hyperion Books for Children.
The National Endowment for the Arts provides a number of grants for young writers looking to further their skills. While the award is not exclusively for minority writers, it is still a wonderful resource for those wanting funding to practice their craft. Two such awards are the organization's Creative Writing Fellowships and the Translations Project.
The Creative Writing Fellowships provides winners with $25,000 to travel, research and write. The Translations Project, is geared slightly to a different group of writers, providing grants for $12,500 or $25,000 for literary works to be translation into English. The amount of money given is dependent upon the artistic prowess and the merit of the project.