What is the Royal Literary Fund?
Supporting writers since 1790
We believe writers matter because writing matters.
Welcome to the Royal Literary Fund on Substack!
We promise to make all our content free to anyone who wants to read our articles. So, if you are a professional writer or share our passion for writing and believe that writers’ lives matter, subscribe to our newsletter today.
For those who may not have heard about us, The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a UK charity founded in 1790 that helps writers in financial need and annually delivers over £5 million in grants, education, and outreach programmes.
We offer a range of grants to professional writers needing short-term to long-term financial support who might be in debt, facing reduced income or unable to write due to a change in circumstances, sickness, disability, or age.
We’ve been able to support many writers who have gone on to produce some of their most influential and best-known works, including Anna Burns, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Doris Lessing, Mustapha Matura, Edith Nesbit, Mervyn Peake, Monique Roffey, Ali Smith, Bram Stoker, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dylan Thomas and Antonia White.
In addition, we have several different branches of the RLF, which help support writers and the wider writing community.
RLF Education is our commitment to advancing public education by creating earning opportunities for professional writers where they can share their skills with others. We have placed more than 650 professional writers at over 100 higher education institutions across the UK, from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth, Belfast to Brighton, who are helping students improve their writing. Many of our writers go on to run workshops helping people develop their writing skills in the workplace for organisations like the NHS and trade unions or through hosting self-expression writing workshops in recovery centres for refugees and asylum seekers, mental health organisations and domestic abuse survivors. We also have programmes in secondary schools and community reading groups, and some of our writers become freelance Consultant Fellows working with post-graduate students and university staff.
Writing can change lives for the better.
We regularly publish essays on writing by our RLF Fellows, so don’t forget to check out our website, along with our latest division of the RLF, WritersMosaic, an online magazine focused on UK writers of the global majority, reflecting the changing reality of contemporary Britain, from its past and into its future. You can sign up here to hear about the latest authored talks, creative exchanges, interviews and exciting events they’re running via the WritersMosaic newsletter.