If you happen to’re eager to concentrate on a long-term writing undertaking, however you aren’t certain find out how to fund your work, writing fellowships might present the help you want.
Writing fellowships normally include funding and house for writers to concentrate on a artistic undertaking slightly than the enterprise of supporting themselves.
From writing fellowships for brand new writers to artistic writing fellowships, there are many differing kinds for any sort of artistic who’s in search of an opportunity to let their tasks thrive.
Many writing fellowships require residency in a selected metropolis during the fellowship, whereas others fund worldwide journey—however all present monetary help that allows their recipients to completely dedicate their time to writing.
The world of writing fellowships might be dizzying, however we’ve sifted by way of the choices and located a few of the finest for poets, fiction writers, nonfiction writers and journalists alike.
The alternatives right here run the gamut from fellowships for established writers to launching pads for these on the starting of their careers. Every fellowship on the checklist is an annual contest, so if this 12 months’s deadline has handed, you’ll have a lot of time to arrange for subsequent 12 months.
20 writing fellowships for authors, journalists and poets
Wherever you’re in your writing profession, you’re sure to discover a tempting choice or two on this checklist of writing fellowships that might make it easier to pursue your subsequent undertaking.
1. Steinbeck Fellow Program of San José State College
If you happen to’re up for a 12 months in San José and want funding to focus in your work of fiction, artistic nonfiction, drama or biography, it is a implausible alternative.
Named the Steinbeck Fellow Program in honor of John Steinbeck, this $15,000 fellowship permits writers to spend a 12 months engaged on their manuscript whereas benefiting from the college and graduate-student neighborhood at SJSU.
The fellowship is designed for writers who’ve had “some success, however haven’t printed extensively.” It requires a one- to three-page proposal, together with a timeline, three letters of advice, a resume and a writing pattern underneath 25 pages.
Deadline: Purposes are normally due in early January.
2. Mom Jones Ben Bagdikian Fellowship Program
Rising journalists who wish to immerse themselves in an investigative reporting atmosphere will probably be hard-pressed to discover a higher alternative than this.
Primarily based in San Francisco or Washington, D.C., Mom Jones’ editorial fellowship program is famend for its spectacular alumni checklist. Fellows do hands-on analysis and fact-checking and have alternatives to pitch on-line and print content material.
Mom Jones provides fellows $23.52 per hour USD. To use, comply with the rules posted on the web site.
Deadline: The 2025-2026 fellowship cycle will start in June 2025, and run for one 12 months. Purposes will open within the spring.
3. The Rona Jaffe Basis Fellowship
The Rona Jaffe Basis Fellowship on the Positive Arts Work Heart is awarded every year to an rising girl author of outstanding promise. The fellowship totally funds the seven-month residency and features a $2,500 prize to assist defray the price of journey and dwelling bills.
There may be additionally a Fellowship Entry Fund for others accepted into the Writing or Visible Arts Fellowship. This can be a one-time award starting from $500 to $2,500 USD.
Deadline: The 2025-2026 Writing Fellowship deadline is December 16, 2024. The 2025-2026 Visible Arts Fellowship deadline is February 3, 2025.
4. The Kenyon Evaluation Fellowship
Inventive writers of all genres are invited to use for the two-year KR Fellowship at Ohio’s Kenyon School. Candidates ought to have expertise educating literature or artistic writing to undergraduate college students, as they are going to be required to show one semester every year within the English division whereas endeavor “a major writing undertaking.”
Moreover, fellows are anticipated to work on quite a lot of artistic and editorial tasks for The Kenyon Evaluation. Fellows obtain an annual wage plus advantages. Be sure you spotlight your “achievement and long-term potential” in your utility, and play up your educating expertise.
Deadline: In 2024, purposes have been due October 18. Examine the web site for future deadlines.
5. Loft McKnight Artist Fellowships
Minnesota writers, this one’s for you. 5 $25,000 writing fellowships can be found: 4 in artistic prose or poetry and one artistic writing fellowship for a author of kids’s literature.
If you happen to’re simply beginning out, you would possibly wish to bookmark the Loft McKnight Artist Fellowship for later in your profession. To be eligible, writers should reveal previous publication, both a ebook or a major variety of literary journal publications.
The funding is meant to allow its recipients to concentrate on their craft for the 12 months. Your 15 to 18 web page writing pattern would be the bedrock of your utility.
Deadline: The deadline is normally in autumn. In 2024 the deadline is November, 19.
6. Bucknell Stadler Fellowship
The Bucknell College Humanities Heart supplies a number of fellowship and grant alternatives for each college and college students who want to research and work within the humanities.
The Humanities Heart College Analysis Fellowships (FRF) are meant to supply college within the humanities with the assets wanted to help and improve ongoing analysis resulting in publication in peer-reviewed venues (print and/or digital). In 2024 to 2025, the fellowship supplies $3,000 for analysis bills. The fellowship interval will probably be Oct. 1, 2024 by way of June 30, 2025.
Deadline: The Utility Interval for 2024-2025 is closed, however verify again for future alternatives.
7. Nieman Fellowships
Maybe probably the most beneficiant award obtainable for established journalists, the Nieman Basis at Harvard provides writing fellowships for as much as 24 journalists every year. Fellows spend two semesters on the faculty delving into grasp lessons, store talks, seminars and journalism conferences.
Most fellows obtain a stipend of $75,000 over the 9 months they spend at Harvard, along with housing, childcare and healthcare.
This fellowship is much less about making time to jot down and extra in regards to the likelihood to profit from a neighborhood of fellow journalists and teachers earlier than you come to your skilled life.
It’s essential to have 5 years of full-time media expertise underneath your belt to use. Additionally noteworthy: 12 of the 24 fellows will probably be worldwide journalists, so non-U.S. residents ought to positively take into account this chance.
Deadline: The deadline for worldwide candidates is usually in early December (in 2024 the deadline is December 1), whereas U.S. candidates can typically apply till late January (this cycle it’s January 31, 2025).
8. James Jones First Novel Fellowship
Fiction writers wrestling with their first (unpublished) novel ought to pay attention to this fellowship. Named in honor of the “From Right here to Eternity” writer, the winner of the First Novel Fellowship will obtain $12,000 USD.
Candidates are requested to submit a top level view of their novel-in-progress, in addition to the primary 50 pages of their manuscript (so in case your novel continues to be in thought kind, reap the benefits of NaNoWriMo or the same problem and get cracking). In case you have multiple novel within the works, you’re welcome to submit a number of manuscripts as separate entries. An entry price of $30 is required to accompany every submission.
Deadline: Entries are accepted from October 1 of yearly till midnight on March 15 of yearly.
9. The Hodder Fellowship
Open to writers and visible artists (and composers, choreographers, efficiency artists or other forms of artists), the Hodder Fellowship invitations fellows to pursue impartial tasks at Princeton’s Lewis Heart for the Arts through the educational 12 months. Fellows are awarded a $92,000 stipend over the 10-month fellowship.
The “distinctive promise” referred to as for by the standards ought to take the type of superior levels and beforehand printed work, as most literary fellows have printed a ebook previous to their fellowship 12 months.
The Hodder is exclusive, so far as campus-based author fellowship applications are involved: Fellows usually are not required to show and even work together with campus life in the event that they don’t wish to. The Lewis Heart appears for writers who’re at an important second of their profession, the place they’ll tremendously profit from time away from busy lives.
Deadline: Purposes are typically due in mid-September. In 2024, the deadline was September 10 at 11:59 p.m. Japanese Time.
10. Pen Heart Rising Voices Fellowship
Designed for underrepresented, marginalized writers who’re remoted from the literary institution, the Rising Voices Fellowship fosters the careers of rising writers by way of coursework, readings, Q&A periods with distinguished authors, mentorship, scholarship alternatives and a $1,500 honorarium.
For 5 months in Los Angeles, Rising Voices fellows will work on a particular writing undertaking with an expert mentor along with attending organized occasions and lessons.
Writers of fiction, artistic nonfiction and poetry are invited to use. The fellowship will not be open to writers who’ve an undergraduate diploma in English with a artistic writing emphasis, or those that have accomplished MA or MFA artistic writing applications. And for those who’re already broadly printed or can boast an array of accolades, this isn’t the fellowship for you.
Deadline: The appliance interval is open between January 1 and January 31.
11. Persephone Miel Fellowship
The Persephone Miel Fellowship is a good alternative for non-U.S. journalists who wish to amplify their reporting on points which might be neglected by the mainstream media.
The guy will obtain a $5,000 grant for a reporting undertaking on subjects and areas of worldwide significance, with an emphasis on points which have gone unreported or underreported within the mainstream media.
Any journalists (workers writers or freelancers) outdoors of the U.S. who want to report from their residence nation are invited to use, particularly girls or journalists from creating international locations.
Deadline: The deadline is usually in early March. Please go to the web site for future name dates and deadlines.
12. Wallace Stegner Fellowship
Ten proficient fellows—5 fiction writers and 5 poets—will spend two years writing at Stanford College as recipients of the Wallace Stegner Fellowship.
Fellows take part in a weekly three-hour workshop led by Stanford college, however don’t have any different campus duties past workshop attendance. Nonetheless, it’s anticipated that fellows will attend the quite a few enriching occasions provided by Stanford’s creative-writing program, similar to readings and lectures given by established authors.
The primary aim of the fellowship is to finish or make important progress on a manuscript. The Stegner is open to any author, no matter age or nationality, and pays a dwelling stipend of $43,000 per educational 12 months, along with tuition and medical insurance. Candidates can’t be enrolled in a level program similtaneously their fellowship.
Deadline: The appliance interval is normally open in autumn. In 2024, the deadline for the 2025-2027 fellowship closes November 1 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.
13. Patrick Henry Historical past Fellowship
If delving into American historical past by way of your writing is your dream, this one’s for you. The Patrick Henry Historical past Fellowship is a nine-month residency at Washington School in Chestertown, Md. and is open to each students and non-academic writers whose work focuses on “the historical past or legacy of the U.S. founding period and the nation’s founding concepts.”
Candidates ought to be capable to reveal important progress on their writing undertaking previous to making use of and will have in depth publication historical past underneath their belts. The fellowship pays $45,000 and supplies medical insurance, college privileges and a ebook allowance.
Deadline: The deadline for the 2025-2026 fellowship is January 15, 2025.
14. Scripps Fellowship
Budding environmental journalists will swoon for the possibility to spend two semesters on the College of Colorado at Boulder’s Heart for Environmental Journalism.
Along with endeavor an impartial research which ought to result in “a major piece of journalistic work,” recipients of the Scripps Fellowship take at the least three lessons every semester in environmental science, regulation and coverage, and take part in related discipline journeys round Denver, Boulder and past.
Fellows obtain $80,000 for the tutorial 12 months. 5 writing fellowships are awarded every year, and the fellowship is open to any U.S. citizen with 5 years {of professional} journalism expertise underneath their belt, even when they’ve by no means reported on the atmosphere.
Deadline: The appliance deadline is March 1, yearly.
15. Wisconsin Institute for Inventive Writing Fellows
The Wisconsin Institute for Inventive Writing Fellowships are for candidates with an MFA or PhD in artistic writing who don’t have any printed books or just one full-length assortment printed by the applying deadline. The Institute usually internationally awards two fiction fellowships and two poetry fellowships, and one third-year MFA fellowship to a present scholar.
The year-long writing fellowships present “at the least” $40,000 with “beneficiant” well being advantages, and it requires fellows to show one course per semester.
Fellows ought to stay close to Madison, Wis., and be obtainable to completely take part within the native writing neighborhood, give a public studying and assist choose the next 12 months’s fellows.
Deadline: The appliance interval is usually open within the winter, with a deadline set at March 1.
16. Leon Levy Heart for Biography Fellowships
The Leon Levy Heart for Biography (LLCB) provides a number of fellowships yearly to fund the analysis and writing of excellent biographies, together with particular fellowships for CUNY dissertation college students writing biography, and the Sloan Fellowship to fund biographies of scientists.
Recipients spend time engaged on their tasks, going to seminars, attending public occasions and being a part of the neighborhood. First-time biography writers are most popular.
Deadline: Purposes are usually due in early January.
17. O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism
The O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism is a nine-month fellowship specializing in journalism “with the potential to drive motion and enhance lives.” Candidates ought to have at the least 5 years {of professional} expertise and produce journalism usually.
Fellows work on public service journalism from a regional, nationwide or worldwide degree, working from the O’Brien suite at Marquette College’s Diederich School of Communication in Milwaukee.
Funds embrace a $75,000 wage stipend (USD), and fellows can faucet into beneficiant allotments for housing, though additionally they take distant or partially-remote purposes along with full-residency purposes.
Deadline: Purposes usually open in December, with the deadline in January.
18. Nationwide Endowment for the Arts
Working on a two-year cycle, Inventive Writing Fellowships in prose and poetry can be found for writers at varied profession levels in alternating years by way of the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts Literature. Which means fellowships in prose (fiction and nonfiction) can be found one 12 months, and fellowships in poetry are provided the following.
This aggressive program provides $25,000 grants to a various vary of printed artistic writers to help their efforts in writing, analysis, journey and different profession development endeavors that outcome within the growth of their portfolio of American artwork. “The standards for evaluation are the creative excellence and creative advantage of the submitted manuscript,” so make sure you submit your finest work.
Deadline: Purposes are usually due mid-March every year (in 2024 the deadline was March 13 at 11:59 p.m. Japanese Time). Watch the web site for subsequent 12 months’s utility announcement.
19. A Public Area Writing Fellowships
A Public Area is an impartial, non-profit writer of the award-winning literary and humanities journal of the identical title. The Writing Fellowship helps “early-career writers who embrace threat of their work and their very own singular imaginative and prescient.”
This six-month writing fellowships contains editorial help from the journal’s editors that can assist you put together a chunk for publication within the journal, a $1,000 honorarium, plus the chance to fulfill brokers, editors and printed writers within the publishing neighborhood.
Take note solely writers who’ve but to be printed or contracted to jot down a book-length work are eligible. To use, you’ll want a canopy letter with a one-paragraph biographical assertion and one beforehand unpublished prose piece of any phrase rely.
Deadline: Watch the web site for particulars on upcoming Writing Fellowships, which must be posted in December.
20. Rising Author Fellowship
If you happen to’re 18 or older and you’ve got a ardour for writing, you meet the standards to use to the Rising Author Fellowship, a year-long expertise created by GrubStreet artistic writing middle. To develop new, thrilling voices and get rid of a few of the monetary limitations to coming into the publishing world, the Rising Author Fellowship supplies three writers tuition-free entry to GrubStreet’s lessons and conferences.
All year long, writers will attend seminars, multi-week programs of their selecting and convention periods to study extra in regards to the craft of writing and the publishing trade. Apply with a 500-word private assertion and writing samples.
Deadline: Examine the web site for particulars on upcoming Rising Author Fellowships, which must be posted in January.
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