The Michelle Obama Award for Memoirs is officially up for grabs.
Penguin Random House announced the retitling of the prize in its more than 25-year-old Creative Writing Awards program, on Wednesday. Co-administered with the grassroots organization We Need Diverse Books, the Michelle Obama prize will provide a $10,000 college scholarship to a high school senior in public school, based on an autobiographical English-language composition.
The multinational publishing company will also pay tribute to two more Black authoresses in other categories, like Amanda Gorman for Poetry and Maya Angelou for Spoken Word.
The forever-First Lady’s memoir “Becoming” was published in 2018. According to AP News, the book sold more than 17 million copies worldwide, becoming the most popular book by a modern White House resident.
“I know firsthand how nerve-wracking it can be to share the most intimate stories from your life with the world,” Obama said in a statement released by Penguin Random House.
“But after publishing my memoir ‘Becoming,’ I’ve learned that writing your own story can be a powerful tool. When we share the whole of ourselves, we offer others the opportunity to not only see us as we are, but maybe even think about themselves in a new way,” she said. “This allows us to harness the things that set us apart and helps us see the world as the nuanced, messy, beautiful place that it is. That’s why I am so excited about this new award, and I can’t wait to read what this next generation of young writers will share with us all.”
Established in 1993, The Creative Writing Awards program has awarded more than $2.8 million to public high school students.
Obama’s next book, “The Light We Carry,” will be released Nov. 15.
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