Iceland Writers Retreat Alumni Award grants

The Iceland Writers Retreat offers financial support to a select number of talented writers who otherwise could not afford to attend the retreat. It is the generosity of IWR alumni and friends that makes these grants possible.

The application window For IWR 2026 is now closed. Thank you to all of our applicants from around the world.

We will aim to announce winners in early December.

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How to Support the Award Fundraiser

Our Karolina crowdfunding campaign for IWR 2026 was successful.

The more funds we have, the more opportunities we can create. To contribute to the 2027 Alumni Award fund:

5.000 ISK
10.000 ISK
30.000 ISK
60.000 ISK
125.000 ISK
300.000 ISK

To donate a custom amount, please reach out to iwr@icelandwritersretreat.com. Thank you for your generosity!

Who can apply?

Candidates must be age 18 or older by the start date of the retreat. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and levels of writing experience. Family members of the judges and those who have attended the IWR are not eligible to apply. 

Applicants will be asked to provide:

  • A statement of impact on why you are applying for the award
  • A maximum 1,000 word creative writing sample (prose: fiction, non-fiction, or memoir)
  • Two references (attached as pdfs to the application)
  • An acknowledgment of financial need

What does the award cover?

Entrants can apply for either full or partial funding.

Full funding covers one standard participant fee, four nights accommodation in Reykjavík (location may not be the retreat hotel), and round-trip flights to Iceland.

Partial funding covers the standard participant fee only.

Note: We receive more applications for full funding. Please ensure that you apply for the most suitable category for you. 

The award does not include airport transfers, travel insurance, travel visas*, or incidentals or meals not listed in the itinerary.

*We are not responsible for issuing travel visas, however, we will provide required supporting letters.

How are the recipients chosen?

The recipients are chosen based primarily on two factors:

  1. The potential they demonstrate as a writer.

  2. Their need for financial support to be able to attend.

Applications will be reviewed by a team of IWR alumni. The IWR founding directors will make the final award recipient selections. 

General tips for applying

The awards are very competitive. For IWR 2025, we could only choose six winners from more than 3,000 applications. To increase your chances of being selected, please follow the application instructions carefully:

  • Incomplete applications will not be considered.
  • It is not possible to make changes to your application once it has been submitted.
  • Application fee: If the 1.250 ISK fee is not paid, the submission will not be included for review.
  • Financial need: This is a difficult yet important factor to consider for this award. Please be as honest as you can in explaining why this event is beyond your means without support. To qualify for full funding, you must demonstrate that you are unable to afford even the cost of flights to Iceland and accommodation. You will be asked to answer a question about whether you have sought additional funding. Some countries offer support to writers who attend conferences, and we’d like to see if you have taken initiative in terms of thinking broadly for ways in which you can attend.
  • Your background: We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and with all levels of writing experience. While the quality of your writing is what is most important, we rank applications highly from people who have not had the opportunity to attend many writing retreats or to develop their writing in other ways. 
  • Statement of impact: In your statement of impact, tell us why this particular event and faculty have captured your interest. Show us that you have done research about the Iceland Writers Retreat. 
  • References: References should be written by people who are familiar with the role that writing plays in your life and who are not family members. We give higher marks for references that have been written specifically for this event. The references must be submitted with your application form. We cannot accept references sent via email.

2026 contributors

We are able to offer full and partial grants to the 2026 retreat thanks to the generosity of our founders, Eliza Reid and Erica Green, as well as the following friends and alumni of the IWR:

Karen Redfearn, Bashir Bashir, Peggy Newell, Gray Taylor, Rick Theiss, Lisa Morriss-Andrews, Ghislaine Patthey, Chloe Johnson, Cathy Raphael, Lisa Pallatroni, Elizabeth Dowd, Laurie Moy, Molly Arnn, Ian Gunn, Janet Perkins-Howland, Sólveig Ólafsdóttir, Bill Fite, Sarah Willett, Edward McSweegan, Marie Glenn, Lindsay Nash, Sue-Lyn Erbeck, Allison Reid, Edna McNamara, Gay Inskeep, Lisa Ochowycz, Sara Letourneau, Ashleigh Bugg, Alexandra Yingst, Rita Mullin, Andrea Thomas, Emily Hampson, Rhonda Owen, Joy Nash, Georgina Dark, Arani Kajenthira, Elizabeth Pentland, Kathleen McCleary, Iain Reid, Danny Ramadan

2025 Alumni Award recipients

H.B. Asari

H.B. Asari

H.B. Asari is a Niger Deltan prose and poetry writer. Her work explores current and possible future climate realities. Her work has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2023, the Climate Change Poetry Prize 2022, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize 2024. She has been published in adda, Strange Horizons, FIYAH, Consequence Forum and more. Her work has been supported by Brooklyn Poets, Fine Arts Work Center, and the CANEX Book Factory. She is working on a novel and collection that seamlessly integrate all her interests. You can find her on Instagram as @draft_oroguitas.

Efemia Chela

Efemia Chela

Efemia Chela is a Zambian-Ghanaian writer and literary critic who was nominated for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2014. In 2020, she was a writer-in-residence for PEN UK and Quay Words. Her bylines include Wasafiri, New Internationalist, Short Story Day Africa anthologies, the Johannesburg Review of Books, and PEN Passages: Africa. She is working on her debut novel and is represented by Pontas.

Catherine Dowling

Catherine Dowling

Catherine Dowling was born in Ireland and has divided her life between the United States and her home country. She has a Master's in History from the University of Montana and since then, has worked hard to create a checkered resume that includes waitressing, quality assurance, teaching, and psychotherapy as well as writing. She has published two books: Radical Awareness: Five Practices for a Fully Engaged Life, (Llewellyn Worldwide), and Rebirthing and Breathwork: A Powerful Technique for Personal Transformation. (Piatkus, UK). Her articles have appeared in Oneing, Rkvry, Positive Health, Inside Out, Lowestoft Chronicle, Montana Mouthful, HerStry and more, available at www.catherinedowling.com  She has lived in New York, Montana, California, and New Mexico but currently resides in Ireland. 

Julie Noble

Julie Noble

Julie Noble is an emerging writer in various genres based in Northern England. In 2019 her memoir piece "Detail" was published in Kit de Waal’s critically acclaimed Common People, and Julie was able to develop her writing with New Writing North. That same year she was awarded three awards including a Northern Writers Award, Arvon Gold Dust and Moniack Mhor Two Roads. 

In 2020 Claire Malcolm MBE suggested her as a presenter for "My Name Is Julie" for BBC Radio 4. The programme discusses the effect of lockdown on the education of children from a low socio-economic group, it is still available online.

In June 2021, Julie was selected for the GENESIS/Jewish Book Week Emerging Writers Programme. With Cathy Rentzenbrink as mentor, Julie wrote a memoir about the injustice for male and female victims of domestic abuse in the UK legal system. The work was shortlisted for the TLC Pitch Prize in 2022. Julie is now working on a fictional book incorporating multiple voices.

Julie’s fiction covers a wide range of subjects and has won prizes as well as appearing in magazines such as Mslexia. In recent years she has been working on plays which have been short and longlisted for national and international prizes.  

In 2021 Julie was one of the writer/performers in Dr Louise Powell’s short film "Counterculture" which premiered at Durham Book Festival.  In 2024 she was one of six recipients of the Raising Films Residency and has worked within the community to collect social history stories. This month she began a new development opportunity with Screen Yorkshire to bring a long-hidden intriguing history mystery onto film.

Julie has been applying for the Iceland Writers Retreat for seven years and is honoured to be a chosen as a recipient.

John Pucay

John Pucay

John Pucay is a writer from Baguio and Benguet, Philippines. His personal writing explores indigenous roots, mountain running, polyamory, and the complexities of making a living as an artist. His novel on 2020s dating, Karinderya Love Songs, was named a "Favorite Read" by one of the Philippines' largest bookstore chains. His short film on childhood, Game Boy Advance, premiered at the 2024 San Diego Filipino Film Festival in California. A recipient of several literary awards and creative writing fellowships, John's work has appeared in Vice, Rappler, Likhaan Journal, and Anomaly, among others. The Iceland Writers Retreat is his first international writing workshop. More details about him and his work can be found at johnpucay.com and on Instagram @johnpucay.

Aizhan Yesbolatova

Aizhan Yesbolatova

Aizhan Yesbolatova is a writer from Kazakhstan living in Jersey City. Her first English-language essay was published in HuffPost in 2024 and syndicated across international platforms such as Yahoo Life Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada, and Singapore. Excerpts of her essay also appeared in the French Magazine Aufeminin. 

She is currently working on a collection of essays exploring womanhood and identity through a Central Asian lens, drawing from her experience growing up in post-Soviet Kazakhstan with its economic turmoil, identity crisis, and traditional demands. Parallel to her writing, she is developing a documentary about her grandmother living with dementia in Eastern Kazakhstan. 

Through her trilingual writing in English, Kazakh, and Russian, she aims to bring often-overlooked Central Asian voices to global conversations about immigration, family relationships, and women's experiences.

Previous winners

2024: Marko Bogdanović, Georgina Dark, Monica Drake, Zehra Imam, Sandra Jackson-Opoku

2023: April Dobbins (Unites States / Iceland); Lisa Guenther (Canada); Tochukwu Okafor (Nigeria)

2020: Chelsie Bryant (United States; attended in 2022); Abak Hussain (Bangladesh; attended in 2023); Okechi Okeke (Nigeria; attended in 2023); Jo McClelland Phillips (Canada / Australia; attended in 2022); Chuck D. Smith (Philippines; attended in 2023); Michelle Walshe (Ireland; attended in 2022)

2019: Lucy Grace (UK); Daniel Musgrave (United States); Lola Opatayo (Nigeria); Jonaki Ray (India); Carien Smith (South Africa)

2018: Fatin Abbas (Sudan / United States); Michael Agugom (Nigeria); Puja Changoiwala (India); Julia Duin (United States); Nora Shychuk (United States)

2017: Akvile Buitvydaite (Lithuania / Denmark); Peter Ngila (Kenya), Nathan Ramsden (UK); Victor Yang (United States)

2016: Megan Ross (South Africa); April Wolfe (United States)