We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2026 Creative Writing Awards, including the inaugural winner of the Chinua Achebe Award for Freedom of Expression.

The Chinua Achebe Award for Freedom of Expression is a new creative writing prize honoring the celebrated author’s powerful legacy. Open to public high school students, the award invites applicants to respond to the prompt: “Tell us about one banned book that changed your life and why.” A first-place prize of $10,000 will be awarded for the most original and compelling literary composition.

We are passionate about encouraging the next generation of readers and authors and promoting diverse voices and stories. For more than 30 years, we have supported this mission through the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards, which in 2019 entered into an innovative new partnership with We Need Diverse Books. Through this program, we award college scholarships of up to $10,000 each to six U.S. high school seniors nationwide. In addition, honorable mentions receive “creativity kits,” which include a selection of Penguin Random House titles and writing resources. Creative Writing Award winners have gone on to become professional and award-winning authors.

The Chinua Achebe Award for Freedom of Expression is one of six creative writing awards given by Penguin Random House. Other categories include the James Baldwin Award for Fiction, the Michelle Obama Award for Memoir, the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry, and the Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word. In recognition of the Creative Writing Awards previously being centered in New York City, the competition will award an additional first-place prize to the top entrant from the NYC area. Please find the full press release here.

Since 1993, this program has awarded more than $3 million to public high school students for original poetry, memoir/personal essay, fiction/drama, and spoken word compositions. This signature program continues to empower and celebrate hundreds of young writers each year and underscores our unwavering commitment to identifying and nurturing new literary talent.

In addition to scholarships, Penguin Random House hosts a virtual development week for the Creative Writing Awards winners each summer that includes one-on-one virtual meetings with Penguin Random House editors, networking workshops, a panel about career opportunities in publishing, and fireside chats with Penguin Random House authors. The week concludes with a virtual awards ceremony.

VIEW THE 2026 WINNERS HERE

To read a selection of the 2025 winning entries, click here. To read a selection of previous years’ winning entries, click on the year: 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019

For more information please visit Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards – Scholarship America.