Howard Foundation Fellowships

Howard Fellowships

The Howard Foundation awards a limited number of fellowships each year for independent projects in selected fields, targeting its support specifically to early mid-career individuals, those who have achieved recognition for at least one major project. Approximately ten fellowships of $33,000 will be awarded in April 2015 for 2015-2016 in the fields of

Creative Writing (Fiction), Creative Writing (Poetry), and Philosophy

Howard Fellowships are intended primarily to provide artists, scholars, and writers with time to complete their work. They are not intended for publication subsidies, for equipment purchase, for preparation of exhibits, or to support institutional programs. The deadline for submission of applications is November 1, 2014. Fellowship recipients will be announced in April 2015.

Fellowships are offered in a five-year sequence of fields. Successful candidates are given the option of postponing receipt of their fellowship, so as to make the Howard competition accessible to those whose personal plans do not line up exactly with the year in which awards are offered in their fields.

Candidates establish their eligibility for a Howard Fellowship by answering a series of questions as part of the application process. Two copies of the completed application materials should be mailed to the Howard Foundation with a postmark dated not later than November 1, 2014.

Sequence of Awards

The Howard Foundation offers fellowships in a five-year rotation of fields, as described below for the next five years. Please note that the fellowships are awarded in the spring of the award year, and the deadline for application is the fall of the preceding year.. Successful candidates will be given the option of postponing receipt of their fellowship, so as to make the Howard competition accessible to those whose personal plans do not line up exactly with the year in which awards are offered in their fields. While the Foundation plans to follow this sequence of fields, additional changes may from time to time need to be made as warranted by the limited resources of the Foundation.

Please note that application deadline will in each case occur during November of the year preceding the award year. The specific date will be announced in May of that year.

In order to be eligible to apply for a Howard Fellowship, candidates should be able to answer "yes" to each of the following questions. If "no" is the correct answer to any of them, they are asked to explain on the application form what special circumstances might make them eligible anyway, given the requirements for a Howard Fellowship.

Can your current professional status appropriately be viewed as “early mid-career” as understood by the Howard Foundation? Appropriate candidates for a Howard Fellowship should have completed their formal studies within the past five to fifteen years and should also have successfully completed at least one major project beyond degree requirements that would be sufficient for the awarding of tenure at a research institution or for achieving comparable peer recognition, e.g., through publication. Candidates who are already nationally and internationally recognized leaders in their fields as reflected by their promotion to full professor or by comparable recognition in their fields of endeavor are not normally eligible for a Howard Fellowship.

Would a Howard Fellowship provide you with time off from other responsibilities to work on your proposed project? Our support is particularly intended to augment paid sabbatical leaves. In the case of independent artists or scholars, or those without paid leaves, we would expect that a Howard Fellowship would enable them to devote a substantial block of time to the proposed project.

Are you, regardless of your citizenship, currently living and working in the United States?

Does your proposed project fall within one of the fields established for this year's round of applications? Given the limits of our resources, we must adhere strictly to the fields announced each year for project proposals.