17 Cash Grants & Fellowships for Writers

These are grants and fellowships for writers of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. They range from $1,000 to $168,000. Deadlines for some of these awards are approaching quickly. – S. Kalekar

Harvard University: Radcliffe Institute Fellowships
These are for various disciplines, including creative writing – poetry, fiction, non-fiction, as well as journalism, playwriting and screenwriting. Their guidelines also say, “Applicants may apply as individuals or in a group of two to three people working on the same project. We seek diversity along many dimensions, including discipline, career stage, race and ethnicity, country of origin, gender and sexual orientation, and ideological perspective. Although our fellows come from many different backgrounds, they are united by their demonstrated excellence, collegiality, and creativity.”
Value: $78,000, additional $5,000 for project expenses, office at Harvard University, additional funds for moving expenses, childcare and housing, etc.
Deadline: 10 September 2020
Open for: All published writers (see guidelines)
Details here.

Fondation Jan Michalski Residencies for Writers
These are residencies at the foot of the Jura mountains in Montricher, Switzerland. It is open to all types of writers engaged in literary creation. While they give priority to writers and translators, they are also open to any other discipline as long as writing is at the heart of the project. There are no age or nationality restrictions. Writers working on a project with a collaborator can apply in pairs.
Value: Round-trip travel, CHF1,200 per month
Deadline: 14 September 2020
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen Scholarship
These are for various disciplines, including art and literature. There are no age limit restrictions for applying.
Value: €1,025 per month (less rental, electricity, phone costs), residency at Schöppingen, Germany
Deadline: 15 September 2020
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Princeton Arts Fellowship
This is for artists in many disciplines, including literary, whose achievements have been recognized as demonstrating extraordinary promise in any area of artistic practice and teaching. This is a two-year program and there is a teaching duty attached. Writers do not have to be US citizens to apply. You can apply for this fellowship twice in a lifetime.
Value: $84,000 per year ($168,000 for the two-year fellowship), residency at Princeton
Deadline: 15 September 2020
Open for: All writers
Details here and here.

Hodder Fellowships
Potential Hodder Fellows are composers, choreographers, performance artists, visual artists, writers or other kinds of artists or humanists who have “much more than ordinary intellectual and literary gifts”; they are selected more “for promise than for performance.”  Most writers have had their first book published. The Hodder is designed to provide Fellows with the “studious leisure” to undertake significant new work. One does not have to be a US citizen to apply for this ten-month fellowship.
Value: $84,000, residency at Princeton
Deadline: 15 September 2020
Open for: All writers
Details here and here.

Guggenheim Fellowships
These are for people in various disciplines, including literature, who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. No special conditions are attached to the fellowships. See FAQ for deadline dates, etc, and this submission materials link. Though the application deadline is 17 September, the date for submitting material is in later (to be decided).
Value: Varies
Deadline: 17 September 2020
Open for: US and Canadian citizens
Details here.

Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholarship
This is for fiction writers who were born in Africa or both of whose parents were born in Africa. Writers of non-fiction can also apply, and receive additional funds at the discretion of the foundation panel. Writers are asked to donate a percentage of earnings from sales of what they have written in the scholarship period to the Miles Morland Foundation – a moral obligation, though not a legally binding one. The money is paid monthly over a course of a year. For non-fiction writers, additional funds can be made available, and given over a period of 18 months.
Value: £18,000 for fiction writers, possible additional funds for non-fiction writers
Deadline: 18 September 2020
Open for: African writers
Details here.

New York Public Library’s Cullman Center Fellowship
The Cullman Center’s Selection Committee awards fifteen Fellowships a year to outstanding scholars and writers—academics, independent scholars, journalists, creative writers (novelists, playwrights, poets), translators, and visual artists. Foreign nationals conversant in English are welcome to apply. Candidates for the Fellowship will need to work primarily at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building rather than at other divisions of the Library.
Value: $75,000
Deadline: 25 September 2020
Open for: All writers
Details here.

American Academy in Berlin Fellowship
This is for US-based people who wish to engage in independent study, for a semester. Writers must have published at least one book (composers, artists, and poets are by invitation only). Past recipients have included historians, economists, filmmakers, art historians, journalists, legal scholars, musicologists, public-policy experts, former government officials, NGO leaders, and writers. Most accommodations are also suitable for couples; they also offer accommodations for a limited number of families with children.
Value: Round-trip airfare, $5,000 per month, residency near Berlin
Deadline: 26 September 2020
Open for: People permanently based in the US
Details here.

Speculative Literature Foundation’s Gulliver Travel Grant
This grant is to help writers of speculative literature (in fiction, poetry, drama, or creative non-fiction) in their research. It is to be used to cover airfare, lodging, and/or other travel expenses. Writers need not have been published to apply. Application material includes a writing sample in the proposed genre (see guidelines).  Also see their Working Class Writers Grant, with a later deadline.
Value: $1,000
Deadline: 30 September 2020
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Getty Scholar Grants
These are for researchers of all nationalities who are working in the arts, humanities, or social sciences, for established scholars and writers who have achieved distinction in their fields. Recipients can pursue their own projects free from academic obligations and make use of Getty collections. There are three-, six-, and nine-month residencies.
Value: $21,500-65,000, residency
Deadline: 1 October 2020
Open for: Established scholars and writers
Details here.

The Camargo Core Program
This residency at Cassis, France is for artists (including writers, playwrights and translators) and scholars/thinkers, to think, create and connect. Applicants should have a publication and/or grant track record. They welcome spouses/partners and dependent minor children. Fellowships span 6 to 11 weeks. This year, a supplementary grant for parent artists is also available.
Value: $250 per week, basic coach class travel (see guidelines); additional $500-1,000 supplementary grant for parent artists
Deadline: 1 October 2020
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Canada Council for the Arts’ Explore and Create Grants
These are for Canadian artists, curators and writers (literature includes fiction, poetry, drama, graphic novel, young people’s literature, literary non-fiction, exploratory literary works using new technologies, spoken word creation, storytelling and literary performance). Grants provide support for creative research, creation and project development. Individuals who are Deaf or who have disabilities, including those living with mental illness, and require accommodation at any stage of the application process may be eligible for additional assistance.
Value: Up to CAD25,000
Deadline: 7 October 2020
Open for: Canadian writers
Details here and here.

Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship
This is for a poet born in the US, who is willing to spend a year outside the continent of North America. While many recent winners have been published poets, there is no requirement that applicants have previously published their work. Applications have to be mailed.
Value: Approximately $60,500, adjusted for inflation; if there are two winners, both will receive the same amount
Deadline: 15 October 2020
Open for: American-born poets
Details here (application instructions), here (application form), here (FAQ), and here (home page).

The Haven Foundation Grants
These grants were instituted by Stephen King after he suffered a debilitating accident. They give financial assistance to help freelance artists and writers who have suffered disabilities or a career-threatening illness, accident, natural disaster or personal catastrophe. They do not give emergency grants or COVID-19 grants.
Value: Varying
Deadline: 23 October 2020
Open for: Legal US residents
Details here.

The Howard Foundation Fellowships
These are funds for rotating disciplines. For the upcoming cycle, they will consider proposals from authors and scholars working in any genre, style, or media that can be classified as Creative Non-fiction. This includes but is not limited to the familiar or personal essay, the lyric essay, biography, autobiography, memoir, oral history, travel writing, nature writing, science writing, sports writing, the interview, or other forms of literary non-fiction. (Also see the focus on scholarly works of history for the upcoming cycle). This These fellowships are to buy writers time for their work, and are often used to supplement a sabbatical leave. They are for early mid-career writers based in the US.
Value: $35,000
Deadline: 1 November 2020
Open for: Early mid-career US-based writers
Details here (home page) and here (FAQ).

Black Mountain Institute: Shearing Fellowship
This is a residential fellowship for emerging and distinguished writers who have published at least one book with a trade or literary press. Apart from the cash stipend, this fellowship includes: a semester-long letter of appointment; eligibility for health coverage; office space in the BMI offices on the campus of UNLV; free housing (fellows cover some utilities) in a unique and vibrant arts complex in the bustling district of downtown Las Vegas. While there are no formal teaching requirements, this is a “working fellowship” (see guidelines). The Believer magazine is associated with this institute.
(The page also has details of City of Asylum fellowships, now closed, which provides safe haven for writers whose voices are muffled by censorship, or who are living with the threat of imprisonment or assassination; these are associated with the International Cities of Refuge network, which serves as an umbrella organization and information clearinghouse for local asylum programs worldwide – also see their Residencies, Scholarships, and Grants list; some information is dated, but it is a great resource for artists at risk.)
Value: $20,000 over 4 months, residency
Deadline: 1 November 2020
Open for: Unspecified
Details here.


Author Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She is the author of 182 Short Fiction Publishers. She can be reached here.

 

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