I am looking for an organization that would give a grant to my fiencee
for her to write a christian fiction book/novel. We live in Oregon,
may be moving to Washington, and we're not of any minority. She has a
2 year general education degree, which included a lot of writing
classes. She has never written any long stories, or had any published.
She has had some poetry published in a small paper.

Ideally we would like a grant that would replace her income for a full
year, but anything above $4000 total would be worth looking into. This grant
needs to not require any specific result. She needs to not feel
pressured to produce something. The purpose of the grant is just to
enable her to work less, so she can spend time writing.

Good luck!

P.S. A great resource will result in a healthy tip!

This seems like a tough situation, because

A) grants are usually reserved for scholarly pursuits, which means it
helps to be a student or academic faculty member, and

B) fiction (i.e. novel) projects are not generally awarded grant money
because it is not a scholarly work. If it were a non-fiction book that
could be a different story, but a novel is a work of entertainment,
and therefore writers of novels don't ahve many grants to apply for.
Perhaps a previously published novelist might obtain an advance to
start writing a new novel after a proposal had been reviewed, but this
is a commercial payment, not a "grant" in the true sense.

Just my 2 cents worth.

omniscientbeing-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Hi joeldm --

While your fiance's goals are admirable, I'm afraid it just doesn't
happen the way you described. (And I can speak for many writers when I
say, we sure wish it did!)

As Omnicient said, grants are usually reserved for scholarly
endeavors. Yes, there are grants available for fiction and poetry, but
these are generally awarded to "literary" writers and poets, not
popular writers, and certainly not unpublished writers. I'm afraid
she's going to have to eke it out like the rest of us who are trying
to break into the writer's market. As in any of the arts, the rule of
thumb is, don't quit your day job. :-)

Here's a good article on grants for writing and how they work --

"Nowhere do funds exist to take care of all your living needs to allow
you to write fancy free as well as debt free..."

"Grants, like any financial dealing, offer you income in exchange for
performance - prior proven or projected.."

THE WRITER GAZETTE - Grants for Writing
http://www.writergazette.com/articles/article145.shtml

On the other hand, if YOU believe in her project, you could be her
grantor. The two of you could commit to living a lesser lifestyle on
your income alone, so that she could pursue her novel 24/7. (Remember,
if you, as her fiancee, aren't willing to make that financial
committment, you certainly can't expect a grantmaker to) Just
understand, that the time involved is years. Many.

It just occured to me that you or she may want to read biographies of
other novelists. Read what it took for them to become successful. One
that springs to mind is Stephen King's book "On Writing." It will give
you a good sense of life before fame and what he and his family gave
up in order for him to write and sell that first book.

Amazon - On Writing by Stephen King 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743455967/104-3505918-5499123?v=glance

I hope I've given you a little insight here without being too
discouraging. Writing, as a career, is a rough road, but well worth it
-- not in terms of money, but in terms of satisfaction.

Best of luck to you and your future novelist!

-K~