Antonia Fraser adds to SoA writers grants

The Society of Authors has added two new Authors’ Foundation grants: the Antonia Fraser Grant and the Eric Ambler Award. 

All applicants for work in progress will now be considered automatically for the Eric Ambler Awards, offered in memory of the spy thriller writer, and for the Antonia Fraser Grants, open to any writer. The latter offers two allocations of £3,000 per year for a biography of a woman or women. 

Antonia Fraser, who is one of the Authors’ Foundation’s original trustees, will be retiring from her role this year. Discussing her decision to set up the Antonia Fraser Grants, she said she was "inspired by my own lifelong interest in women's history and a wish to encourage others to share it"

Fraser added: "I believe strongly in the biographical approach to history which was after all created by individuals, and above all hope that applicants for an Antonia Fraser Grant will experience the same mixture of excitement and discovery in the course of their researches, as I have done. As one of the founding Trustees of the Author's Foundation, it gives me special pleasure to support its work in this way: to mark my withdrawal from active involvement after 33 years."

The Authors' Foundation grants are already worth more than £250,000 shared between 60-70 authors each year.

Other awards currently offer funding for writing in the fields of natural history and the environment, philanthropy, poetry, racial understanding, Scandinavia, science fiction, and fantasy and magic realism (open to adult and children’s writers).  

Applications for the Autumn round of the Authors’ Foundation close on 30th September. Information about all the Authors’ Foundation awards, eligibility criteria and details on how to apply can be found on the SoA website.