Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers

Overview

Established in 1999 and supported through a generous grant from the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Foundation, the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers is among the very first of its kind to highlight new works by contemporary writers exploring Jewish themes.

The prize spotlights promising new talent, and is awarded to an American fiction writer for a first or second full-length work that was published in the previous calendar year. Submissions must be made by the publisher.

The award includes a prize of $2,500, as well as a one-week residency at Ledig House International Writers Colony in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Eligibility

Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States. International students cannot be granted fellowships at this time. Previous grantees of the Goldberg Prize may not reapply.

Applications must be submitted directly by publishers. We cannot accept submissions from individual authors at this time.

Guidelines and Application

Grants are awarded on a competitive basis and are recommended by a panel of writers, publishers and other literary professionals.

Click here to see last year's application.

Deadline

We will be announcing 2009 deadlines in spring 2009. The winner will be announced this fall.

Previous Panelists

The panelists for 2008 included:

• Jane Friedman, Publisher & Former CEO of HarperCollins

• Danny Gainsburg, Owner of Politics & Prose Bookstore, Washington DC

• Dara Horn, National Jewish Book Award-winning author, Ph.D. in Yiddish and Hebrew Literature, Harvard U. (In the Image, The World to Come)

• Faye Moskowitz, Professor of English, George Washington University

• Lara Vapnyar, New Yorker Award-winning author, 2004 Goldberg Prize winner (There Are Jews in My House, Memoirs of a Muse)

Previous Grantees

The 2008 prize was awarded to Anya Ulinich for her debut novel Petropolis. Ulinich was also chosen by the National Book Award foundation as a "5 Under 35" awardee.

The 2007 prize was awarded to Scott Nadelson for his story collection The Cantor’s Daughter (Hawthorne Books, June 2006). The book captures Jewish New Jersey suburbanites in moments of crucial transition, when they have the opportunity to connect with those closest to them or forever miss their chance for true intimacy. Nadelson’s stories are sympathetic, heartbreaking, and funny as they investigate the characters’ fragile emotional bonds and the fears that often cause those bonds to falter or fail.

For a complete list of past grantees and their books, click here.

For further information about this prize, please contact Paul Zakrzewski, program officer for literature and scholarship, at pzak@jewishculture.org.

Program Funder

The Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers is made possible through a generous endowment and annual support of the Samuel Goldberg & Sons Foundation, Inc.