The PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers honors exceptionally talented fiction writers whose debut work—a first novel or collection of short stories published in 2007—represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise. One PEN/Robert Bingham Fellow will be selected by a panel of three writers or editors who are PEN members.

The winner receives a cash award of $35,000, a stipend intended to permit a significant degree of leisure in which to pursue a second work of literary fiction. The Robert Bingham Fellow is also encouraged to become an active participant in the PEN community and its programs advancing literature, free expression, and the worldwide PEN community of writers.