Support Writers
Writers' Fund grants
PEN American Center
Problem
Every year writers around the country face unexpected financial crises resulting from circumstances beyond their control. The PEN Writers’ Fund is an emergency fund for professional writers facing acute health crises and/or financial emergencies. The PEN Fund for Writers and Editors with HIV/AIDS, administered under the PEN Writers’ Fund, gives grants to professional writers and editors who sufferserious financial difficulties because of HIV or AIDS-related illness.
The Gift
Support writers in need by contributing to PEN’s Writers’ Fund. Recent grant recipients include: a prize-winning poet who escaped domestic violence and was struggling to support herself, her 19-month-old son, and her mother; an elderly writer of six books, hundreds of articles, and short fiction who, through a Medicare bureaucratic error, was unable to pay for the treatment she needed; and a mid-career novelist and playwright who was hit by car and needed funds to pay for dental, visual, and X-ray work, as well as basic living expenses. In 2005–06, 34 writers, editors, and translators received an average of $1,200 each and an additional $16,000 was granted to 28 New Orleans writers who were victims of Hurricane Katrina. Each contribution of $50 helps assist one writer in an emergency.