Since 2014, the SLF has offered two diversity-centered grants intended to foster the creation of speculative fiction work rich in diversity. Writers may apply for either or both grants.

The Diverse Writers Grant

OPEN JULY 1, 2025 – JULY 31, 2025

Award: $500 USD.

Winner Announced: September 28th, 2025

The Diverse Writers grant is intended to support speculative fiction writers from underrepresented and underprivileged groups — such as writers of color, women, queer writers, disabled writers, etc. — whose marginalized identities may present additional obstacles in the writing and publishing process.

The Diverse Worlds Grant

OPEN JULY 1, 2025 – jULY 31, 2025

Award: $500 USD.

Winner Announced: September 28th, 2025

The $500 Diverse Worlds grant is intended for work that best presents a diverse world, regardless of the writer’s background.

Grant Information

Your project does not need to center on identity issues. We also do not expect or want work that simply attempts to check off all the boxes in a tokenistic way, but rather are looking for writing that offers deep characterization, complex cultural landscapes, and strong literary quality overall.

The submitted project must be a book-length work of speculative fiction. This grant, as with all SLF grants, is intended 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 our aegis. Nonfiction, poetry, picture books, and editorial projects are not eligible for either grant.

These grants are designed to foster new, in-progress work, not to recognize already published work. We intend that grant funds will facilitate completing the work.

This grant is open to all levels of publishing experience, worldwide. The grant jury will be primarily English-reading, although works that incorporate other languages (as in Keri Hulme’s The Bone People’s use of Maori) are welcome.

Examples of Diverse Worlds

Grant Application Process

The application form for the Diverse Writers and Diverse Worlds grants are only active during the open submission period: 12:00AM July 1, 2025 – 11:59PM July 31, 2025 (All times UTC -4). Required materials include:

- A written description of the project: This description should not exceed 500 words.
- A cover letter: Explain which grant (or grants) you are applying for. Include a short (less than 500 words) autobiographical statement describing your work thus far and a bibliography of previously published work, if applicable. Applicants need not have prior publishing credits to apply. For the Diverse Writers grant, please provide a brief statement on the relevant aspect(s) of your background.
- A writing sample: Sample should not exceed 5,000 words. The submitted work must be speculative fiction as defined above.

Jurors will deliberate with the goal of announcing winners by September, 2025.

Note The application form for the grant is now closed.

Accessibility

If you are unable to use the form for accessibility reasons, please use the form on the right or send an email to grants@speculativeliterature.org, and an alternative means of submission will be provided for you.

Thank You!

This grant is made possible by the contributions of two donors, Ellen Wright (Senior Publicist, Hachette Book Group) and Faye Bi (Associate Publicist for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), who ran a marathon to raise enough funds to support three years of this grant.

Testimonials

"The A.C. Bose Grant has been such a gift, both financially and existentially. The grant is a reminder that the writing is what matters, and that somewhere there's an audience for it. It's helped me slow down and focus on the work, and for that I'm tremendously grateful."

"I can't express how much being awarded the Working Class Writers Grant meant... Where monetary concerns were becoming a point of stress, it gave me the space and stability to write more freely."

"The Older Writers Grant gave me validation, encouraging me to keep adding to my stack of rejections. Soon after, my story was short listed for the Aeon Award."

"The Diverse Worlds and Diverse Writers grants gave me the space to work on a series of essays and the beginning of a draft of a new memoir. I'm still so grateful for that small breath of relief."

"I won the Working Class Writers Grant at a time when I was struggling both with my artistic practice and at my day job. It gave me an enormous boost of confidence, as well as financial breathing room"

"Thanks to the SLF Gulliver Travel Grant, it was made possible for me to travel from Tokyo to Kyoto, Japan, where the anchor story of my second book, a novel-in-stories called The Love We Share Without Knowing, took place. The regions of Japan, like any country, are diverse and have their own local cultures. So it was important for me, setting a book in Japan, to be able to get my hands and feet into the soil of the various regions where the settings of the book take place. Without the Gulliver Grant, I may not have been able to visit all of my book's locales. And because of the Gulliver Travel Grant, I believe the book is better for the firsthand experience."