Deadline: 30-Sep-2025
The Speculative Literature Foundation is accepting applications for its Working Class Writers Grant Program to help writers working with speculative literature.
Speculative literature spans the breadth of fantastic writing, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy, including ghost stories, horror, folk and fairy tales, slipstream, magical realism, and more. Any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element would fall under their aegis. Unlike their other grants, you may choose to receive this grant anonymously or pseudonymously.
The grant awards $1,000 USD to winners, who will be announced in November 2025. The goal of these grants is to help as many writers as possible, so recent winners can reapply but will be considered low-priority within a 2-year window of winning. Given their limited funds, they will prioritize applicants currently in financial need.
The grant is open to writers who may qualify if any of the following apply: you qualify for government assistance (food stamps, Medicaid, tax credits, free school lunch) for a significant period of time, you live paycheck-to-paycheck, your parents did not go to college, you rely on payday loans, you’re currently being raised in a single parent household, you’re supporting yourself and paying your own way through college, you’ve lived at or below 200% of the poverty line for your state for at least one year, or you’ve experienced stretches of time when food was not readily and easily available.
While the grant is based in America, international writers are encouraged to apply and assess their eligibility according to their own country’s circumstances. The application process requires a cover letter including a personal statement of up to 750 words explaining your eligibility and your goals for the grant, with an optional bibliography of previously published work.
Applicants need not have prior publishing credits to apply. You must also submit a writing sample: up to 10 pages of poetry, 10 pages of drama, or 5,000 words of fiction or creative nonfiction. If submitting a segment of a longer work, a one-page synopsis must be included as the first page of the document. The submitted work must be speculative as defined above. The application period closes at 11:59 PM on September 30, 2025, in UTC -4.
For more information, visit Speculative Literature Foundation.
