Thank you for applying for a 12 x 12 Financial Need Scholarship. This scholarship opportunity is open to any picture book writer/illustrator from any country in the world who would otherwise not be able to join the 12 x 12 Picture Book Writing Challenge due to the cost of the registration fee is invited to apply.
Applicants must be over the age of 18, must not currently have agent representation, and must be unpublished by a traditional publisher in the picture book genre.
Authors who have self-published a picture book or are published in another genre may apply.
The picture book manuscript submitted must be an original work written by the applicant in English containing no more than 1,000 words. Backmatter may be submitted with your manuscript, but is not included in the word count. (Your name and title are not included in the word count either.)
12 x 12 will not consider applications that have used Generative AI, either in whole or in part, to generate, revise, or translate any component of the application materials, including the manuscript, the query letter, the pitches, the creator bio, the author statement, or the statement describing the financial need (or diversity statement). Applicants must check the box on this form indicating that no Generative AI was used in the creation of any of the submitted materials. 12 x 12 reserves the right to disqualify submissions or rescind scholarships if they are discovered to have been created with GenAI.
The manuscript may not be under contract with a publisher.
Do not submit illustrations or photographs with your submission. (Author-illustrators are eligible to apply but, for the purposes of the scholarship, we are judging applications based only on the writing.)
Please specify the intended age range for manuscript (i.e. 0-4, 4-8, etc.).
The deadline to submit is November 30, 2026.
Winners will be announced on the 12 x 12 blog on January 1, 2027. Click here to access the 12 x 12 blog: https://12x12challenge.com/blog/