These are grants, residencies and fellowships for writers, poets, playwrights and translators. The awards are for a variety of demographics, and for writers at various stages in their careers. Some of them are residencies at beautiful or vibrant locations, or both, and are meant to buy writers the space and time to write, free from their usual obligations. A few are meant to help writers in financial difficulties. The grants range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. None of them charge an application fee. — S. Kalekar

Creative Access: Residencies for Visual Artists & Writers with Spinal Cord Injury
These are residencies for US/Canada-based artists and writers with spinal cord injuries, specifically neurological and functional impairment due to traumatic SCI, spina bifida, degenerative disease primary to the spinal cord (transverse myelitis) or damage to the spinal cord due to tumors and surgery.
Value: $1,000 stipend, residency, $250 room/board, travel and caregiver support
Deadline: 20 August 2018
Open for: US/Canada-based writers with specific spinal cord injuries
Details here.

Red Bull Arts Detroit Visiting Writer Fellowship
This is for engaging writers with Detroit’s arts community. They will provide travel to Detroit, accommodations, and a stipend to develop a piece of art writing and a public program. The fellowship takes place over a two-month period and allows for two visits to Detroit, the first for research, and the second to present a public program such as a talk, a workshop, or a similar initiative.
Value: $2,000, hotel accommodation, transport
Deadline: 24 August 2018
Open for: US citizens/residents
Details here.

Regional Arts Commission of St Louis: Artist Fellowships
These are for St. Louis-based artists of various disciplines, including writers. They allow for more time and space to study, reflect, experiment, explore, practice, and create. The grants are for seasoned, mid-career and emerging artists. Also see their Artist Support Grants, for amounts of $500-3,000, with a deadline of 20 September 2018).
Value: $20,000
Deadline: 30 August 2018
Open for: St. Louis artists
Details here.

The Society of Authors: The Authors’ Foundation Grants
These are for writers whose works of fiction, non-fiction or poetry have been commissioned by a British publisher, or those who have had at least one book published by a British publisher and there is a strong likelihood that the next work will be published in Britain. All applicants will also be automatically considered for several other specific grants covering various topics and genres (see guidelines).
Value: £3,000-6,000
Deadline: 1 September 2018
Open for: Writers having work commissioned by, or publication history with, a British publisher
Details here and here.

The Society of Authors: K. Bludell Trust Award
These are grants for British authors under the age of 40 whose work aims to increase social awareness. The project can be fiction or non-fiction.
Value: Up to £6,000
Deadline: 1 September 2018
Open for: British writers under 40
Details here and here.

New York Public Library: Schomburg Center Scholars-in-Residence Program
This program has short-term and long-term fellowships for scholars writing on Africa and the African Diaspora. The short-term fellowships, for 1-3 months, are also open for creative writers – novelists, playwrights and poets. The program is intended for those needing extensive, on-site research with collections at the Schomburg Center, the pre-eminent repository for documentation on the history and cultures of peoples of African descent around the globe.
Value: $2,500 per month
Opens on: 1 September 2018
Open for: Those writing on Africa or the African Diaspora
Details here and here.

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop: Margins Fellowship
This is for emerging Asian American and/or Muslim, Arab, or South Asian writers of poetry, fiction and non-fiction aged under 30, living in the New York City area. Writers must be able to demonstrate a financial need. While some publication record is preferred, the strength of the work is more important than its home. Unpublished writers will be given equal consideration with a strong writing sample. Written submissions do not need to concern Asian American issues.
Value: $5,000, residency, mentorship
Deadline: 5 September 2018
Open for: Young Asian-American (and/or Muslim, Arab, or South Asian) writers in New York
Details here and here.

Kentucky Foundation for Women’s Artist Enrichment Grant
This is for feminist artists and arts organizations who create art for social change. Funding is provided for several activities – artistic development, residencies, exploration of new areas or techniques, or building a body of work. For writers, the application includes a writing sample. They also have an Arts Meets Activism grant, which will open again next year.
Value: $1,000-$7,500 (typically $2,000-4,000)
Deadline: 7 September 2018
Open for: Kentucky-based artists and organizations
Details here and here.

Canada Council for the Arts’ Explore and Create grants
This is a grant for Canadian artists, curators and writers. Activities supported are creative research, creation, and project development, including residencies. Their website says, “The Research and Creation component of Explore and Create supports the initial stages of the creative process. Canadian artists, artistic groups and arts organizations can apply to develop and make creative works. 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.” There are two deadlines annually.
Value: Up to CAD25,000
Deadline: 12 September 2018
Open for: Canadian writers
Details here.

Harvard University: Radcliffe Institute Fellowships
The fellowships are for creative writing (fiction, non-fiction, poetry), journalism, playwriting and screenwriting, and other disciplines. It is for those who have shown “exceptional promise and demonstrated accomplishment” in their fields. See information on the special themes and projects (scroll down) for this round of applications.
Value: $77,500 plus an additional $5,000 to cover project expenses, and other funds; office/studio space at Harvard University
Deadline: 13 September 2018
Open for: All published writers (see guidelines)
Details here and here.

Wheaton Cultural Project Grants
They encourage proposals by African, Latino(a), Asian, Arab, and Native American (ALAANA) artists, arts organizations and communities in Montgomery County. Individual artists must partner with an organizational partner based in Montgomery County. The grants are for various disciplines, including the literary arts.
Value: $1,000-10,000
Deadline: 13 September 2018
Open for: Montgomery County-based artists
Details here.

Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen Scholarship
These are for artists of various disciplines, including writers. They award about 10 scholarships in literature each year.
Value: €1,025 per month (less apartment, telephone and electricity costs), residency at Schöppingen, Germany
Deadline: 15 September 2017
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Guggenheim Fellowships
These are for people “who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.” The fellowships are to buy them time to pursue their creative endeavours, including writing. No special conditions are attached. Writers (except playwrights) cannot submit manuscripts, only published work. See their submission materials list for the work they need submitted, and what it is not appropriate to send.
Value: Amounts vary
Deadline: 17 September 2018; work samples by 15 November
Open for: US/Canada citizens
Details here and here.

Princeton University: Princeton Arts Fellowship
This is for artists – including novelists, poets and playwrights – whose achievements have been recognized as demonstrating extraordinary promise in any area of artistic practice and teaching. There is a teaching duty attached for this two-year residency.
Value: $82,000/year ($164,000 for two years), residency
Deadline: 18 September 2018
Open for: All writers
Details here and here.

Princeton University: Hodder Fellowships
This is given to writers and artists of other disciplines who show exceptional promise. The fellows are selected “more for promise than performance”. Most writers have had their first book published. This fellowship is to help them undertake significant new work. No formal teaching is involved.
Value: $82,000, residency
Deadline: 18 September 2018
Open for: All writers
Details here and here.

Lower Manhattan Creative Council: Creative Engagement Grants
These grants are for artists (including literary) and nonprofits for projects and activities that offer Manhattan communities diverse artistic experiences. There must be a public component, and the activity must be in Manhattan. Artists can apply individually to access City funding or team up with organizations to access State funding.
Value: $750-8,000
Deadline: 18 September 2018
Open for: Manhattan artists
Details here.

New York Public Library: Cullman Center Fellowship
This is an international fellowship for scholars and creative writers (novelists, playwrights, poets) whose work will benefit directly from access to the collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The fellowship is awarded to 15 people annually.
Value: $70,000
Deadline: 28 September 2018
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholarship
This is for writers born in Africa or both of whose parents were born in Africa. This is for writers of fiction. Writers of non-fiction can also apply, and receive additional funds at the discretion of the foundation panel. The guidelines ask writers to donate 20% of earnings from sales of what they have written in the scholarship period to the Miles Morland Foundation as a moral obligation, not a legally binding one.
Value: £18,000, possible additional funds for writers of non-fiction
Deadline: 30 September 2018
Open for: African writers
Details here.

Getty Scholar Grants
These are international grants for established scholars and writers who have achieved distinction in their fields. Recipients are in residence at the Getty Research Institute or Getty Villa, where they pursue their own projects free from academic obligations and make use of Getty collections.
Value: $17,200-65,000, depending on residency period
Deadline: 1 October 2018
Open for: Established scholars and writers
Details here.

PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship

This is for an author of children’s or young-adult fiction. The fellowship is for helping writers whose work is of high literary caliber and is designed to assist a writer at a crucial moment in his or her career to complete a book-length fiction work-in-progress. Applicants must have already published one work for children or young adults that was warmly received by literary critics, but whose work has not yet attracted a broad readership.
Value: $5,000
Deadline: 1 October 2018
Open for: Published YA/children’s writers
Details here.

The Rockefeller Foundation: The Bellagio Center Arts & Literary Arts Residency
This residency is for artists of various disciplines, as well as fiction and non-fiction writers, playwrights and poets “who share in the Foundation’s mission of promoting the well-being of humankind and whose work is inspired by or relates to global or social issues.” They also accommodate writers’ spouses or partners.
Value: Room and board at the Bellagio Center in Italy; a grant, if required, for travel expenses
Opens on: 1 October 2018
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Delaware Artist Opportunity Grants
This is for Delaware-based artists, including writers, to “support unique professional and artistic development and presentation opportunities for artists. Examples include: materials to complete work for a specific show or program; the cost to rent a facility for a performance; study with a master for a specified period of time. Evaluation criteria include: anticipated impact on the artist’s work or career; financial feasibility and need; marketing plans; and uniqueness of the opportunity.” There are quarterly deadlines. Applicants can request up to 80% of the opportunity cost.
Value: Up to $750
Deadline: 1 October 2018
Open for: Delaware-based artists
Details here.

American Academy in Berlin Fellowship
This is for US-based established and emerging writers, journalists, professionals, scholars and artists of other disciplines who wish to engage in independent study. Writers must have published at least one book. Poets are chosen by nomination only. They also offer accommodation for families with children.
Value: $5,000/month, residency near Berlin
Deadline: 5 October 2018
Open for: People living in the US (US citizenship not required)
Details here.

American Antiquarian Society: Fellowships for Creative and Performing Artists and Writers
These are fellowships for historical research by creative and performing artists, including writers and children’s writers, poets and journalists who wish to produce “imaginative, non-formulaic works dealing with pre-twentieth-century American history.”
Value: $1,850 (room fee to be deducted if staying on campus), residency at Worcester, Massachusetts
Deadline: 5 October 2018
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship
This is for American born poet who is willing to spend a year outside the continent of North America. Their guidelines say, “While many recent winners have been published poets, there is no requirement that applicants have previously published their work.”
Value: Approximately $59,000, adjusted for inflation
Deadline: 15 October 2018
Open for: American-born poets
Details here and here.

Public Space Fellowships
The aim of this fellowship is to seek out and support writers who embrace risk in their work and their own singular vision. This is for writers who have not yet published or been contracted to write a book-length work. International applicants are encouraged to apply. The fellows will receive six months of editorial support from A Public Space editors to prepare a piece for publication in the magazine, an honorarium, the opportunity to meet with members of the publishing community, including agents, editors, and published writers, and the opportunity to participate in a public reading and conversation in New York City with A Public Space editors and contributors. The Public Space is a literary, arts and culture magazine.
Value: $1,000, editorial support
Application period: 15 September-15 October 2018
Open for: Writers who have not published a book
Details here.

The Camargo Core Program
This residency at Cassis, France is for artists (including writers and playwrights) 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.
Value: $250/week, basic funds for travel (see guidelines)
Deadline: 17 October 2018
Open for: All writers
Details here.

Washington College: Patrick Henry Writing Fellowship
This is a full-time residential writing fellowship, for writing on American history and culture. Applicants should have a book currently in progress. Their guidelines say, “The project should address the history and/or legacy – broadly defined – of the American Revolution and the nation’s founding ideas. It might focus on the founding era itself, or on the myriad ways the questions that preoccupied the nation’s founders have shaped America’s later history. Work that contributes to ongoing national conversations about America’s past and present, with the potential to reach a wide public, is particularly sought.”
Value: $45,000, other allowances, residency
Deadline: 1 November 2018
Open for: Published writers
Details here.

North Carolina Arts Council: Artist Fellowships
These fellowships are for North Carolina artists of various disciplines, and in this funding cycle, also include writers. The fellowships support artists in their development and the creation of new work.
(Also see the Council’s Regional Artist Project Grants for amounts of $300-5,000. These grants have earlier deadlines, and they vary for various counties.)
Value: $10,000
Deadline: 1 November 2018
Open for: North Carolina artists
Details here.

The Haven Foundation Grants
This foundation, established by Stephen King, gives financial assistance to help established freelance artists and writers who have suffered disabilities or a career-threatening illness, accident, natural disaster or personal catastrophe.
Value: Unspecified
Deadline: 10 November 2018
Open for: Legal US residents
Details here.

National Endowment for the Arts: Translation Project Fellowship
These are for published translators. The fellowship is for the translation of works of prose, poetry, or drama from other languages into English. They encourage translations of writers and of work that are not well represented in English translation. The proposed projects must be for creative translations of literary material into English.
Value: $12,500 or $25,000
Deadline: 5 December 2018
Open for: Published translators who are citizens or permanent residents of the US
Details here.

Wellstone Center in the Redwoods Writing Fellowship
This short fellowship is in California, for emerging writers of fiction or creative non-fiction. Preference will be give to writers with at least one book published with a major publisher.
Value: Residency
Deadline: Rolling
Open for: All writers
Details here.

American Society of Journalists and Authors: Writers Emergency Assistance Fund
The fund is for helping established freelance writers who, because of advanced age, illness, disability, a natural disaster, or an extraordinary professional crisis are unable to work. Writers need not be members of ASJA, but must have credentials that would qualify them for an ASJA membership. Writers need not live in the US.
Value: Unspecified
Deadline: Rolling
Open for: All established freelance writers
Details here.

The Society of Authors: Contingency Funds
These grants are for contingencies, to help professional writers who need a boost. The grants are managed in confidence and can be for a variety of things. Their guidelines say, “Struggling with the cost of a new boiler? Computer on its last legs? Project fallen through leaving you with a shortfall? Writing career affected by illness or a domestic situation? Have you thought about applying to us for help?” Specific grants are available for poets and women journalists.
Value: Unspecified
Deadline: Rolling
Open for: Professional writers
Details here.

Writers’ Trust of Canada: Woodcock Fund
This is a last-resource emergency resource for Canadian writers who face unforeseen financial crisis, who are engaged in a book-length work. The program is not intended to be a means of support for writers challenged to earn an income. A crisis of some nature is necessary to be considered. Screenwriting, formulistic romance writing or journalism are not eligible.
Value: CAD2,000-10,000
Deadline: Rolling
Open for: Canadian writers who have published at least two books, or an equivalent body of work
Details here.