The Sarah Quinn BAME Writing Scholarship for YA and Children’s Fiction
BY Katie Smart
3rd Jul 2018
We’re excited to announce that former Curtis Brown Creative student Sarah Quinn is providing a new BAME writing scholarship for our Writing YA and Children’s Fiction online course, taught by author Catherine Johnson. One talented writer of colour will receive a fully-funded place on the 3-month course, which runs this autumn. We want to encourage and support greater diversity amongst our students – and in doing so, to discover and foster exciting new voices for the future. We are grateful to Sarah for her generosity in providing this scholarship, which will be awarded to the applicant whose submission material shows the greatest potential and promise. The decision will be made by the Curtis Brown Creative team with input from Catherine Johnson and from Sarah herself. Sarah is writing a YA novel herself, and is inspired to help another writer who’s at work on a novel for children or young adults – and who is in need of financial support to join our course. Sarah studied on a Curtis Brown Creative 6-month course in London, and has already funded a place on that course. The scholarship was awarded to Sri Lankan writer Samuel Daram, who says: "The Sarah Quinn Scholarship continues to change my life. The course gave me the confidence to find and trust my own voice..." This new bursary is specifically for a writer of colour who can’t afford the fee to join our online YA/Children’s Fiction course. Sarah Quinn says: “The books we read as children and young adults shape our thinking and allow us to explore the world around us, through imaginative storytelling and characters we can relate to. It is so important that there are opportunities for writers, from all backgrounds, to tell those stories we haven't yet heard. I'm delighted to be sponsoring a scholarship for a writer of colour to work with the CBC team to create something new that young readers can't put down.” Catherine Johnson – acclaimed YA and children’s book author and course tutor, says: “I am excited at the prospect of reading brand new work by emerging writers of colour. Children's stories hold a very special place in the British psyche, and the children's books world is crying out for original voices that can not only hold up a mirror for young readers, but provide a window into a million different worlds.” We have previously offered other writing scholarships, but this is the first BAME-only opportunity – and the first scholarship for our Writing YA and Children’s Fiction course. In June of this year, Kiare Ladner – the current HW Fisher-scholarship student on our London-based course, gained a major publishing deal with Picador via Curtis Brown’s Cathryn Summerhayes, for her debut novel Nightshift. A further scholarship opportunity – The Marian Keyes Novel-Writing Scholarship (for a writer with low income to be awarded a fully-funded place on our 6-month online novel-writing course) – is also currently open for applications. Find out more about the Sarah Quinn BAME Writing Scholarship for YA and Children’s Fiction here.