My Writing Life with Simon Okotie

Founded in 1790, the Royal Literary Fund (RLF) is a UK charity that helps writers in financial need. We annually deliver 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, whether because they are in debt, facing reduced income, or unable to write due to a change in circumstances, sickness, disability, or age.

Since 1999, our RLF Education programmes have created earning opportunities for over 750 professional writers at over 100 universities and institutions. Most begin as RLF Fellows, teaching students writing skills across the UK, from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth, Belfast to Brighton. Many then continue to work with the RLF by creating local reading round groups, leading expressive writing sessions, and helping develop writing skills in the workplace.

For over two centuries and through our commitment to supporting literary excellence and representation in contemporary writing, we have been able to support many writers who have gone on to produce some of their most influential and best-known works, including Anna Burns, Margaret Busby, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Joseph Conrad, Elizabeth Jennings, 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.

www.rlf.org.uk