For thirty-two years, Penguin Random House has supported the next generation of writers and promoted a diverse range of voices through the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards, which entered into an innovative new partnership with We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) in 2019. Through this program, Penguin Random House awards six U.S. high school seniors nationwide with college scholarships of up to $10,000. The program focuses on underrepresented communities and honors students who dare to be unique and are unafraid to take risks.
Six outstanding seniors from public high schools across the country were selected as recipients of the 2025 Creative Writing Awards. More than one thousand students from more than nine hundred high schools across fifty states and three territories entered the competition.
“Each year, we are amazed by the exceptional talent of our Creative Writing Award recipients, and this year is no exception,” said Claire von Schilling, EVP, Director of Corporate Communications and Social Responsibility, Penguin Random House. “We are so proud to support these emerging writers alongside our partners at We Need Diverse Books.”
Every submission was given individual consideration via a rigorous scoring process by judges from WNDB and Penguin Random House. In addition to the first-place winners, eighty-three honorable mentions received creativity kits including books, journals, and other materials to inspire creative writing.
The six first-place students were awarded with $10,000 scholarships in the following categories:
- James Baldwin Award for Fiction: Mahnoor Qazi of Golden Valley High School, Santa Clarita, California, for “Eternity”
- Freedom of Expression Award: Sarah Escobedo of Lopez Early College High School, Brownsville, Texas, for “Unveiling the Silence: How a Banned Book Gave Me a Voice”
- Michelle Obama Award for Memoir: Bailey Terrett of Toms River High School North, Toms River, New Jersey, for “5 Minutes”
- Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry: Laila Asberry of Cleveland School of Science and Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio, for “To Build a Better Black Woman”
- Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word: Jaylen Hughley of Oxon Hill High School, Oxon Hill, Maryland, for “Black Education in America”
- NYC Entrant Award: Emmet Schickele of Hunter College High School, New York, New York, for “Stoop Dinner”
For the first time, the awards this year included the James Baldwin Award for Fiction, in honor of the hundredth birthday of the literary legend and civil rights champion. James Baldwin’s niece, Darlene Burnett, served as a judge and selected the inaugural winner.
“As Baldwin’s niece, it has been an honor to select the recipient of the James Baldwin Award for Fiction,” Burnett said. “Traveling the creative landscape of students with insightful narrative voices has been inspiring. They continue to demonstrate that the power of words can inform minds, fuel the imagination, and construct narratives that compel us to read and to feel. They are the literary architects of the future.”
In addition to the scholarship, each first-place recipient was given the opportunity to attend a week of summer professional development from Penguin Random House, including one-on-one coaching from some of the industry’s best editors, networking workshops, a panel about career opportunities in publishing, a fireside chat, and a virtual awards ceremony.
Darlene Burnett was featured as a guest at the fireside chat. Sierra Espinoza Figueroa, Senior Manager of Marketing at Knopf, moderated the event. Figueroa was involved in the coordination of Baldwin 100, a centennial campaign, with several colleagues across Vintage, Penguin Random House, the estate, and other external partners dedicated to celebrating and preserving Baldwin’s legacy.
“James Baldwin’s words continue to impact generations,” Burnett said. “My uncle embodied an innate prophetic ability, remaining relevant to the inequalities that plague us today. A fearless voice and impassioned visionary, he wrote with a harsh, unapologetic truth that challenged us to examine our beliefs. He believed in educating and empowering young people. As inheritors of this vision, we must embolden these aspiring writers to tell their stories courageously.”
