We Need Diverse Books™ is now accepting applications for the 2018 Walter Dean Myers Grants. This year, WNDB will give 5 grants at $2000 each to unpublished writers or illustrators from marginalized backgrounds who are working on children’s or young adult literature projects. The submission window is open from now until 11:59PM EST on June 15th, 2018, and application information can be found here.

The Walter Grant program was initiated in 2015 to provide financial support to promising writers and illustrators from diverse communities. The program’s co-chair Marietta Zacker adds, “Our aim is to give voice to the voiceless, to amplify and elevate people who for too long haven’t had fair or equal representation in the world of books for children and young adults.”

In 2015 and 2016, WNDB awarded 11 Walter Grants of $2000 each. Previous recipients include Yamile Saied Méndez, author of WHERE ARE YOU FROM? and winner of Lee & Low’s New Voices Award; Jacqueline Alcantara, author of THE FIELD; and Angie Thomas, author of THE HATE U GIVE, a #1 NY Times Bestseller that has also been adapted into a movie produced by Fox 2000 Pictures. The Walter Grant program was on hiatus in 2017.

We Need Diverse Books™ is a 501(c)(3) organization established in 2014 to address the lack of diverse representation in the children’s publishing industry. The WNDB Walter Grant is one of many initiatives funded or supported by WNDB™. More about the organization is available here. More information about the WNDB Walter Grants is available here.

Contact: Please email Caroline Tung Richmond at carolinerichmond@wndb.local