Apply for an award
“There is a bird and a stone in your body. Your job is not to kill the bird with the stone.”
– Victoria Chang
The Ravenshill Project awards
If you are an unpublished* writer whose circumstances put retreats beyond your reach – if the idea of a secluded writing week sounds like it is for someone else – we want to hear from you.
The Ravenshill Project was founded in the belief that the gift of time and space in a beautiful setting should be shared. Every year, we reserve four weeks of our calendar for unpublished writers who face barriers to their practice. Awards include up to £150 for travel, and a daily stipend of £10 (reimbursed).
We have an annual window for applications, after which writers are selected according to their circumstances and literary merit. We aim to select four writers and host them for a week each, but we are guided by individual needs and availability. Awards include an optional manuscript assessment and an hour-long tutorial with the founder of The Ravenshill Project.
Our 2026 deadline for applications is 31 May. The selected writers will be contacted by 30 June.
Please complete the form below to submit your application. If you have any questions, please visit our FAQ page or do get in touch.
We do not have specific selection criteria, nor do we ask for proof of circumstances. We do ask that you think carefully before applying. The value of a Ravenshill Project award is approximately £650 per person for a week’s stay (including travel), and the aim is to gift time and space where it has the potential to make a life-changing impact.
*To qualify as ‘unpublished’, writers must not have a literary agent or publishing deal in the UK or abroad, nor can they have published in the past. You may have had writing published online or in anthologies, been listed for or won competitions, or self-published.
Awards application guidelines
The awards are open to writers of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama for adult or young readers. We regret that we cannot currently consider spoken word/audio submissions.
Entrants must be over 18 years old.
The Ravenshill Project is a counterpoint to AI. Do not use AI in any part of your application. If we detect AI has been used, your entry will be disqualified.
If your writing language is not English, please specify this in the ‘writing experience’ section and supply a translation as your sample.
Your writing sample can be different from what you intend to work on at Ravenshill, but please specify this in the ‘writing experience’ section.
Please ensure your sample is double spaced, in a readable 12pt font.
You may exceed the 2,500 word count (3 pages pf poems, 12 pages of script) to conclude a scene or chapter, but material significantly over this length will not be read.
Please do include your name on your sample document.
We can only consider one application per writer. If you would like to make a change to your application, please email us.
The deadline for the 2026 awards is midnight on 31 May 2026. We reserve the right to close applications early should the volume exceed our resources. The winners will be contacted on or before 30 June 2026.
The award of a Ravenshill Project retreat is final, and we are unable to enter into correspondence regarding our decision.