The Speculative Literature Foundation created the Older Writers Grants to support writers who are 50 years of age or older at the time of their application, and who are just beginning to professionally publish their work. The awards are intended to aid older writers in overcoming barriers to writing speculative fiction professionally.
Deborah (DK) McCutchen is a senior lecturer for the UMass College of Natural Sciences. She and her two daughters and a "Kiwi who isn't green, but is fuzzy" live "on the bank of a Heraclitean stream." Her first book (nonfiction, science and travel), The Whale Road, was published by Random House NZ and Blake in the UK, receiving a Pushcart Prize nomination and a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book Award. Now writing "gender-bending, scientifically accurate" speculative fiction, her novel Jellyfish Dreaming has been excerpted in an upcoming issue of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Her second novel, Ice, is set in the near future, amid climate disasters and loss of species.
Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, and currently living in Bella Vista, Arkansas, with his wife Marla and a "Zen cat" named Tommy, Michael Fontana has been actively writing since age 13. When not writing, Michael raises funds for a nonprofit organization serving people living with mental illness. His first novel, about teenagers with mental illness, was published after he turned 48. His second novel, an exploration of the meaning of God, was published when he was 50. A chapbook of meditations is forthcoming in 2015 from The Medulla Review Publishing. Michael believes that fiction "ought to be constantly transcending and blending literary boundaries to develop new forms." His work strives to "imagine what lies beyond the stretch of time that we call life on Earth."
The Foundation also awarded honorable mentions to Janice Croom and TM Waldroon.
Jurors for the 2014 Older Writers Grant include Lilla Smee, Stephanie Feldman, and Malon Edwards, Managing Director and Grants Administrator for the Foundation.
Founded in January, 2004 to promote literary quality in speculative fiction, the all-volunteer Foundation is led by Mary Anne Mohanraj and 30 other committed volunteers. The Foundation maintains a comprehensive website offering information for readers, writers, editors and publishers of speculative fiction, develops book lists and outreach materials for schools and libraries, and raises funds for redistribution to other organizations in the field, as well as four awards made annually to writers, of which the Older Writers Grant is one. The others include the Gulliver Travel Research Grant, Diverse Writers/Worlds Grant, and the Working Class Writers Grant. For more information about the Speculative Literature Foundation, contact Malon Edwards at managing_dir@speclit.org or visit the website at http://www.speclit.org.