Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Award
Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Award supports first-time scholarly book authors with publication subventions paid to presses, helping bring work in comparative literature and related areas into print.
Funder: American Comparative Literature Association
Due Dates: November 15, 2026 (Application deadline, 11:59 p.m. EST)
Funding Amounts: Up to three awards of $3,500 each; up to $10,500 annually, paid directly to presses
Summary: Publication subventions help ACLA-member authors bring their first scholarly books into print.
Key Information: Applicants must be ACLA members and first-time book authors who need publication subventions.
Description
The American Comparative Literature Association’s Helen Tartar First Book Subvention Program supports authors who need financial assistance to ensure publication of their first books. Continued by the ACLA Executive Board, the program funds book publication rather than a separate research project. Awards are competitive, and payments go directly to the press responsible for publishing the manuscript.
The program has supported scholarly books across comparative literature, translation, world literature, poetry, and relationships between literature, politics, language, and culture. Recent winning manuscripts explore anticolonial agency and Indian visual archives, US empire and postcolonial literature after September 11, and disability, degeneration, and futurity in modern Spain. Applicants with provisional contracts from established academic presses receive special consideration.
