Coronavirus Relief for Writers

Every working person has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak. As freelance writers and authors, we’ve seen gigs fall through, projects put on hold, and book tours canceled as the world does all it can to stop the spread. If we fall ill, we have no employee benefits to help us cover that lost income.

If you’re in need of financial assistance as a result of this pandemic, there are a variety of resources available to you, ranging from relief for disrupted income to assistance for medical costs. I’ve created this website to catalog and share organized efforts to provide direct relief to affected workers, and I am doing my best to update it as I become aware of more.

Here are just some of the organizations providing relief specifically intended for writers:

• Author’s League Fund
  Type of Relief: Cash Relief
  Website: https://authorsleaguefund.org/
  Intended to help authors facing emergency medical expenses, but not explicitly limited.

• Carnegie Fund for Authors
  Type of Relief: Cash Relief
  Website: https://www.carnegiefundforauthors.org/
  Awards grants to published authors who are in need of emergency financial assistance as a result of illness or injury to self, spouse, or dependent child, or who has had some other misfortune that has placed the applicant in pressing and substantial pecuniary need. Must have been published commercially to qualify.

• Clayton Memorial Medical Fund
  Type of Relief: Cash Relief
  Website: https://osfci.org/clayton/
  This fund provides financial relief to professional science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery writers living in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska) to ease the financial burden of medical expenses.

• PEN America Writers Emergency Fund
  Type of Relief: Cash Relief
  Website: https://pen.org/writers-emergency-fund/
  Emergency relief for writers in crisis.

• Queer Writers of Color Relief Fund
  Type of Relief: Cash Relief
  Website: https://www.gofundme.com/f/queer-writers-of-color-relief-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link-tip&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
  Providing support for 100 queer writers of color whose livelihoods have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

• SFWA Emergency Medical Fund
  Type of Relief: Cash Relief
  Website: http://www.sfwa.org/about/benevolent-funds/emergency-medical-fund/
  Intended to help with authors’ emergency medical expenses.

• Dramatists Guild Foundation Emergency Grants
  Type of Relief: Cash Relief
  Website: https://dgf.org/programs/grants/grants-for-writers/
  Emergency grants to support costs associated with healthcare, childcare, housing, disability, natural disaster relief, and other unforeseen circumstances. Special consideration is currently given to dramatists affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

• Writers Emergency Assistance Fund
  Type of Relief: Cash Relief
  Website: http://asja.org/For-Writers/WEAF
  The Writers Emergency Assistance Fund helps established freelance nonfiction writers who, because of illness, disability, a natural disaster, or an extraordinary professional crisis are unable to work. A writer need not be a member of ASJA to qualify for a grant.

You can find more at the website linked above, as well as other organizations providing relief to working people, from bartenders to stage techs to artists in every medium. If you know of more efforts to provide direct financial relief that aren’t listed here, please contact me at the email address on the website to let me know.

I urge you to seek help if you need it and to donate if you can. We’re stronger together.