If you watch much late night television, you have seen the commercials for books telling you find grants for almost anything you want to do. One of those government grants you supposedly can get is for writing a book. It will hardly surprise you to discover that this is not exactly an easy thing to get a government grant for, especially if you have not already published a number of books on your own...before you even apply. It is possible to be paid to write by a grant, but you will need to know a few things before you will be able to make that happen.
Prerequisites
One of the primary prerequisites for obtaining grant funding for writing is a level of expertise or practical experience in writing about a field, a subject or event. A less-experienced writer might receive funding if she has an important story to tell or experience to share that a grant funder is interested in paying you to write about. Or, you may be a promising writer or a highly regarded writer with a project that meets the goals of some funder somewhere. Contrary to the late-night advertising, however, there are no big pots of government money sitting around waiting to fund someone who suddenly has developed a yen to write. A "good idea for a novel" is not good enough to sell your project. It must meet the needs of a funder, just as a book you have written must be something readers want to read and publishers want to publish.
National Endowment for the Humanities
One government agency that is dedicated to the writer's art is the National Endowment for the Humanities. This agency's stated mission is to "to support research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities." Humanities include modern and classical literature, history, art theory, criticism, linguistics, humanistic social sciences, archaeology, comparative religion, ethics, law and philosophy. The agency has funded the writing of 15 Pulitzer Prize winning books, a documentary on the Civil War, baseball and other historical subjects and thousands of museum exhibits, archaeological studies and special editions of classic books. What they do not fund is for someone with no writing experience or credits to write the Great American Novel. If you do have some training (a doctorate is not always necessary but is helpful), an idea that you've already found partial funding for and a track record of having completed similar successful projects, however, you might just have a shot. Visit the NEH website and spend several days exploring (see link in References). Perhaps you do have a project that might interest the group. Sign up on the website for the newsletter and bulletins so you'll be notified when new material is added so you can stay aware of any new programs the NEH is looking to fund.
National Endowment for the Arts
The NEA's mission is to "support excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education." The NEA does support performing arts projects in addition to the visual arts. Often, these projects may be recorded video, audio or live performances of books or poetry. They have funded performances of original work by young people and performances by authors of their own works. Here again, they work with writers who have a track record or who are a member of a targeted group for whom NEA wants to sponsor arts events or activities. Spend a few days searching the site and sign up for the newsletters and bulletins. The success of your project will depend on how well you fit into the NEA's latest initiatives.
Grants.gov
You should, above all, visit Grants.gov and sign up for their newsletter bulletin that lets you know when requests for proposal in your areas of interest or expertise are issued. Understand that a proposal must be written first. It will often be a work of serious writing in itself and you will not be paid for writing the proposal. Grants are issued for specific topics and usually Request for Proposals are written with someone already in mind as the recipient. But there are occasional nice little projects that come up that you might be able to get, if you have the talents, credentials and grant writing skills.
State and Local Grants
What many writers do not know is that funding for some projects can be written into state budgets as a line-item expenditure for your project. You do not even have to apply, just have a state senator or representative slip the item into the budget in exchange for letting another legislator do the same. Needless to say you need to have an "in" with the legislator. There are also funds available from regional quasi-government agencies like Councils of Government (COGs) and Workforce Boards or from state Arts Councils or Education Departments. You might be able to talk one of these into funding a history of a famous battle if there is local interest in creating a tourist attraction around the site, for instance. It takes imagination, but you can find writing projects that interest such funders. One writer wrote a guidebook on open an intergenerational day care center program using funds that were available in an at-risk children's fund that the COG needed to spend before year's end.
The Trick to Being Funded
You have to find a project that either the community, the state, the nation, an educational institution, civic group or the funder sees as important. You have to be willing to earn your stripes as a writer before applying for such funds or be willing to earn a degree if your experience is limited. The closer you get to a doctorate, the better.
