The Older Writers Grant

OPEN MAY 1, 2025 – MAY 31, 2025

Award: $1,000 USD.

Winner announced by Oct 1, 2024

Update: Due to the unprecedented amount of applications received for the grant this year, the reading and decision-making process is taking longer than usual. We hope to update you on the status of your application in the coming weeks.

Since 2004, the Older Writers Grant has been awarded annually to writers who are at least fifty years of age at the time of application to assist such writers who are just beginning their careers as speculative fiction writers. (We define professional writers as those who qualify for SFWA pro membership; anyone whose made below $1000 from their catalog of published work are considered early in their career and are therefore eligible for the grant). These funds may be used as each writer determines will best assist their work.

This grant, as with all SLF grants, is intended to help writers working with speculative literature from all over the world. 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.

This grant is awarded on the basis of merit. If awarded the grant, the recipient agrees to provide a brief excerpt from their work and an autobiographical statement describing themselves and their writing (500-1,000 words) for our files and for public dissemination on our website and our mailing list.

Please note that 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.

Grant Application Process

The application form for the SLF Older Writers Grant is only active during the open submission period: 12:00AM May 1, 2025 – 11:59PM May 31, 2025 (All times UTC -4). Required materials include:

A cover letter: Include a short (500-1000 words) autobiographical statement describing your work thus far, including date of birth, and a bibliography of previously published work, if applicable. Applicants need not have prior publishing credits to apply.
A writing sample: Up to 10 pages of poetry, 10 pages of drama, or 5,000 words of fiction or creative nonfiction. If you are sending a segment of a novel, novella, or novelette, please include a one-page synopsis as the first page of the document. The submitted work must be speculative, as defined above.

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

Note The application form for the Older Writers Grant is now closed.

Note The application form for the grant will be made available on the 1st of May at 12:00am, and will appear below.

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.

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."