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Sunday, August 9, 2015

ANFASA GRANT SCHEME FOR AUTHORS



Deadline for applications: October 30, 2015

ANFASA, the Academic and Non-Fiction Authors’ Association of South Africa, has announced the next round of the grant scheme to benefit authors of academic and general non-fiction works.

A “general non-fiction work” could be a biography or an autobiography; a history of a town or a region or a religion; a book about music or sport or theatre; a political or social analysis; an account of everyday life in a township; a book about nursing, or cooking, or fashion, or fishes, or traditional medicines, or cars. These are just a few of the many topics supported by the ANFASA grant scheme in the past.

If you are currently working on a scholarly or a general non-fiction work, and are a member of ANFASA, you are eligible to apply. If you are not yet a member of ANFASA you can join at the same time as you submit your application.

The grants are intended to provide a sum of around R20,000 to R25,000 to be used for an author to “buy time” – to take leave, for instance, and devote herself or himself to writing; or to travel in order to conduct research. The grants are for research and writing, and do not cover the cost of publishing the manuscript.

There are only two criteria for eligibility: membership of ANFASA and the desire to complete the writing of a general non-fiction or academic work for publication in book form.

An independent committee will assess the applications and select the most deserving. It aims to offer awards to a wide-ranging group of authors and subjects, and the selection process will respect the need to treat new and experienced authors equally; to bear in mind authors writing in rural as well as urban locations; and to consider authors at all levels of education from the untutored to the degreed.

The ANFASA grant scheme especially encourages writing by new authors. Applications in all the official languages will be equally considered.

To download an application form go to www.anfasa.org.za or send an e-mail to info@anfasa.org.za.

The closing date for applications is October 30, 2015, and the successful applications will be announced in December.