It was awarded to up-and-coming authors whose writing had been featured in distinguished literary journals, but had not published book-length works.
Participating journals for 2011 included: 6 x 6, A Public Space, Bloom, Colorado Review, Creative Nonfiction, Fence, Gargoyle, Glimmer Train, Guernica, Harvard Review, jubilat, Kenyon Review, Lungfull!, New York Quarterly, One Story, The Oxford American, Ploughshares, Rain Taxi, Spinning Jenny, and Tin House.
Each manuscript competed for a $10,000 cash grant and publication at Amazon.com and in The Boston Book Review.
The Gregory Kolovakos Award[27] was a literary award given every three years by PEN American Center to a U.S. literary translator, editor, or critic "whose work, in meeting the challenge of cultural difference, extends Gregory Kolovakos's commitment to the richness of Hispanic literature and to expanding its English-language audience".
Gregory Kolovakos was a graduate of Yale University and served as the director of the Literature Program of the New York State Council on the Arts for many years.
The Jerard Fund Award honored a work in progress of general nonfiction distinguished by high literary quality by a woman at the midpoint in her career.
"[31] Sponsored by PEN American Center and Newman's Own, a cash prize of $20,000 was awarded.
It was meant to given to a U.S. resident "who has fought courageously, despite adversity, to safeguard the First Amendment right to freedom of expression as it applies to the written word.
"[34] Sponsored by PEN American Center and Katherine Anne Porter Foundation, the award included a cash prize of US$10,000.
"[38] The Roger Klein Award for Editing was an honor "given [every two years] to an outstanding editor in trade hardcover publishing.