The Whiting Foundation is accepting applications for the 2024 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grants until April 23. Up to ten writers working on “complex, imaginatively composed” nonfiction books will receive a grant of $40,000 each. The grantees will be announced in December.
Eligible writers will have already made significant progress on their books, which should be multiyear, original projects that involve deep and significant amounts of research and writing. Given at a “crucial point mid-process,” the grants are intended to provide “an extra infusion of support” that can meaningfully improve the quality of the books. To be considered, projects must be under contract with a U.S., Canadian, or U.K. publisher. In acknowledgment of “additional structural hurdles to securing institutional resources to support such projects, “writers of color in particular are encouraged to apply.”
Recipients of the 2023 grants were Nicholas Boggs for James Baldwin: A Love Story, Eiren Caffall for The Mourner’s Bestiary, Sarah Chihaya for Bibliophobia, Alexander Clapp for Waste Wars: A Journey Through the World of Globalized Trash, Kendra Taira Field for The Stories We Tell, Molly O’Toole for The Route: The Untold Story of the New Migrant Underground, Dom Phillips with collaborators for How to Save the Amazon: Ask the People Who Know, Carrie Schuettpelz for The Indian Card: A Journey Through America’s Native Identity Problem, Sonia Shah for Special: The Rise and Fall of a Beastly Idea, and Reggie Ugwu for Brilliance Is All We Have: Black Filmmakers and the Fight for the Soul of America.
To learn more, visit whiting.org/writers/creative-nonfiction-grant/about. The Whiting Foundation hosted two online information sessions to answer questions and offer guidance on applying for the grant; a recording of an info session is available here. Writers may submit an application via the online form by 11:59PM ET on April 23.