Financial Support to Help You Finish Writing Your Book

The Society of Authors is one of only a few organisations which makes grants to writers for works in progress.

The Authors’ Foundation and K Blundell Trust award grants twice yearly to assist with research costs or give authors valuable time to complete work.

The deadline for grant applications this autumn is the 30th September.

Applications need to be made by letter with the necessary enclosures - you can find out more by clicking here.

About The Authors' Foundation

The Authors’ Foundation was set up from donations by authors in 1984 and gives grants of up to £6,000 to authors who are currently working on a project and have, or are likely to have, interest from a British publisher.

All applicants will also be considered automatically for specific grants offering funding for writing in the fields of biography about women, the environment and natural history, philanthropy, poetry, racial understanding, Scandinavia, science fiction, fantasy and magic realism (open to adult and children’s writers), spy thrillers and crime.

About The K Blundell Trust

The K Blundell Trust gives grants of up to £6,000 to British authors under the age of 40 whose work aims to increase social awareness. The project can be fiction or non-fiction.

New Grants/Awards for 2017

In addition to these established awards and grants two new grants have been added to those offered by the Trust this year. The Eric Ambler Awards, offered in memory of the spy thriller writer, and for the Antonia Fraser Grants, open to any writer, offering two grants of £3,000 per year for a biography of a woman or women.

All applicants for K Blundell and Author Foundation grants will automatically be entered for consideration in these new awards.

Antonia Fraser, one of the Authors’ Foundation’s original trustees, will be retiring from her role this year and commented on her decision to set up the Antonia Fraser Grants: ‘The Antonia Fraser Grants are inspired by my own lifelong interest in women's history and a wish to encourage others to share it. Not only biographies of individual women will be eligible, but also studies of women in more general terms. I have written both myself, starting for example with Mary Queen of Scots in 1969, and then moving to The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in 17th century England in 1984, ending with a group biography of Louis XIV's ladies in 2006."

"I believe strongly in the biographical approach to history which was after all created by individuals, and above all hope that applicants for an A.F.G will experience the same mixture of excitement and discovery in the course of their researches, as I have done."

"As one of the founding Trustees of the Author's Foundation, it gives me special pleasure to support its work in this way: to mark my withdrawal from active involvement after 33 years."