Collecting, prizes & grants · Less obvious
Grants, bursaries and residencies
Time and money, awarded, so that the next book can exist.
Arts councils, charities, libraries, and the odd private foundation give writers money or a room (sometimes both) to make new work. You apply, you wait, you are rejected more often than not, and then one day a letter arrives that buys a winter. Residencies can also include teaching or public events. This is not a wage. It is a bridge, and bridges are how books get finished.
- Typical pay
- From a few hundred for a small bursary to tens of thousands for a major grant. Residencies may pay a stipend, board, or simply a quiet room in a place with better walks than your kitchen.
- Ceiling
- Solid ceiling
- Speed
- First money in months
- Effort
- A real extra job
- Needs
- No book required
How it works
- 01
You apply to a scheme with a project, a budget, a sample, and whatever statements of need or impact the form demands.
- 02
A panel decides. If you are funded, you report on the work. If you are not, you apply to the next one.
- 03
Some grants are for professional development (a course, a research trip) rather than for the writing itself.
How to start
- 01
Look at Arts Council England (or your nation's equivalent), the Society of Authors' grants, and residencies in your form.
- 02
Keep a living CV of publications, events, and community work. Panels like evidence that the money will be used, not merely wanted.
- 03
A clear project ('finish the third novel; two months; this is the budget') beats a cry of general artistic need.
Watch out
- 01
Application time is writing time you did not spend on the book. Cap it.
- 02
Some residencies are unpaid with a high cost of getting there. Cost the week.
- 03
Reporting requirements are part of the contract. Put them in the diary when you get the yes.
A grant is a patron with a form. I have funded my own research the hard way — including expeditions I paid for because the book required them — and I have learned to respect any scheme that buys a writer a stretch of uninterrupted days. Apply. Then write as if the answer will be no, because often it is.