Translation Opportunities Multiply This Autumn, from Online Workshops to International Prizes

A busy season of translation-focused opportunities is unfolding for writers, students, and literary translators, with programs announced in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland. The offerings span hands-on workshops, scholarly and public symposia, prizes, and residencies, reflecting a wider effort to connect translation practice with publishing pathways and professional development.

Workshops in practice and craft

One of the most immediate options is Treasonous Translations, an eight-week online workshop organized by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance and led by Filipino poet and translator Soleil Davíd. The course begins from Gregory Rabassa’s description of translation as an undertaking that is impossible but still necessary, and it will focus on passages that resist translation, along with the uncertainty and frustration such moments can provoke. The first half of the workshop will examine possible solutions, workarounds, and experiments; the second half will turn to participants’ own translation work.

The class meets on Tuesdays from September 1 through October 20, from 6 to 8 p.m. ET. Tuition is US$270 for MWPA members and US$335 for nonmembers, and one partial scholarship is available to members. Registration is required in advance, with scholarship applications due two weeks before the course begins.

A more immersive in-person option will arrive later in the year, when the Montmartre Workshop convenes in Paris from November 22 to 26. Hosted at the historic Toulouse-Lautrec atelier, the five-day program will bring literary translators together for intensive work with translator Natasha Lehrer. Alongside workshops, participants will take part in discussions, readings, a craft lesson, a visit to Shakespeare and Company, and a group dinner, creating a setting designed to combine concentrated practice with peer exchange.

The Paris program is priced at €975, with participants covering their own travel and accommodation. Applications, which require a registration form and a 500-word writing sample, are being reviewed on a rolling basis.

Translation as a public literary conversation

The University of Leeds will host a daylong symposium on September 17 focused on the international reach of Korean literature. Framed within the broader context of Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, the event will consider recent developments in Korean writing and its translation. It will feature authors Kim Keum-hee and Hwang Bo-reum, translator Clare Richards, and scholar Eugene Kim of SOAS University of London.

Rather than treating translation as a narrow technical task, the symposium is intended to explore the cultural exchanges involved in carrying Korean literature to global readers. Readings, panel discussions, and audience conversations are all part of the program, which will run in person at Leeds from 9:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Registration costs £15 for students and £25 for staff and members of the public, with lunch and refreshments included.

Another major public event, the seventh annual Day of Translation, will be presented on September 24 by the Center for the Art of Translation and the Center for Fiction. Taking place in Brooklyn and online, the event will gather translators, readers, and advocates for conversations about both the creative work of translation and its material conditions.

This year’s panels will address disability and embodied experience in translation, feminist translation collectives working across Lebanon, Cyprus, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and efforts to build collective power among literary translators as workers. The afternoon program is free and open to the public, though registration is required for both in-person and livestream attendance. The day will conclude with a separately ticketed keynote conversation with Emily Wilson, whose Homer translations have drawn renewed attention to the choices involved in bringing classical texts into the present.

Prizes and residencies

Several competitions and fellowships are also opening for submissions. The World Literature Today Student Translation Prize will reopen on September 30, International Translation Day, for students enrolled in translation studies programs anywhere in the world. Entrants may submit either a prose translation of up to 1,000 words or as many as three poems translated into English, accompanied by a professional cover letter naming a sponsoring faculty member and confirming the original author’s permission. One prose winner and one poetry winner will each receive US$200 and publication on the World Literature Today website, and every entrant will receive a one-year digital subscription to the magazine. The submission fee is US$10, and the deadline is January 10, 2027.

The Wisconsin Poetry Series is also accepting entries for its fifth Wisconsin Prize for Poetry in Translation. The competition is open to translators and original authors submitting a full-length collection of poetry translated into English, provided they have permission from the author and rights holders. The winner, selected this year by Jennifer Feeley, will receive US$1,500 and publication by the University of Wisconsin Press. The deadline is October 31, 2026.

For translators working from Persian, the University of Washington’s Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures is seeking submissions for the third cycle of the Mo Habib Translation Prize. This year’s competition centers on prose translated from Persian into English and accepts projects from any genre or historical period, from the tenth century to the present. The winner will receive US$5,000, and Deep Vellum Publishing will publish the completed translation. Applicants must submit a cover letter, a CV, a bilingual sample of ten to fifteen double-spaced pages in each language, and documentation showing permission to translate and publish the work. The deadline is December 31, 2026.

Finally, the Château de Lavigny in Switzerland is taking applications for its 2027 writers’ residencies. The program is open to writers working across languages and forms, and literary translators working on a Swiss author may also apply for the Pro Helvetia Fellowship, provided they can supply a signed publishing contract for the proposed translation. The general deadline is October 15, 2026, and application materials must be compiled into a single PDF and sent by email.

Together, these opportunities show translation being supported across multiple stages of a literary career: learning, public discussion, manuscript development, publication, and residence. For translators and students, the immediate appeal is practical access. For publishing and literary culture more broadly, the range of programs suggests continuing interest in translation not only as a finished product, but as a visible, collaborative part of world literature.