Chanel Originators, Launched in NYC: Mentorship and Grants for Five Unpublished Women Novelists

Chanel and the Women's Prize Trust, the British charity behind the Women's Prize for Fiction, have launched Originators, a mentorship and development program for emerging women fiction writers in the United States. Five writers will be chosen. Each receives a grant and is paired with an established novelist who helps refine the work and present it to the wider literary world. The program also includes guest speakers, industry experts and workshops in New York City.

The inaugural selection panel is chaired by A.M. Homes, the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction winner for May We Be Forgiven. She is joined by Virginia Evans, who won in 2026 for The Correspondent; V.V. Ganeshananthan, the 2024 winner for Brotherless Night; Tayari Jones, the 2019 winner for An American Marriage; and Nicole Krauss, twice shortlisted for the prize and a Guggenheim Fellow. Jones is also named as a mentor in the trust's Instagram posts.

Applications are open to unpublished writers based in the US. Applicants submit a writing sample of up to 5,000 words, a synopsis and information about themselves through the trust's submissions site. The deadline is Monday, November 30, 2026, at 6:59 p.m. Eastern. Bustle reports that the five writers will be announced in New York City in spring 2027.

The program was celebrated in Manhattan on the evening of October 15 at The Twenty Two, a private members club and hotel on Union Square. According to Cultured, the guests included Homes, Ganeshananthan, Krauss, Brit Bennett, Coco Mellors, Megan Nolan and Safiya Sinclair. Claire Shanahan, the trust's executive director, spoke about the role mentorship and community can play in a writer's career. The party was an invitation-style launch, and applications are handled online.

For Chanel, Originators adds to a run of literary projects. The house hosts the Literary Rendezvous reading and discussion series at Rue Cambon in Paris and backs the Nouvel Obs Literary Prize for women writing French fiction. Since 2015 it has also run Through Her Lens with Tribeca Enterprises to support women filmmakers in the US.