Have a question for the RSL?
Hopefully we’ve managed to answer it here. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, please contact us.
Our Awards and Prizes aim to support writers at all stages of their careers. In our library under Look & Listen you can find a range of resources to develop your writing practice. And we’ve put together a list of organisations that provide financial, pastoral and/or editorial support to writer.
The only financial support that we offer to writers is available through our Awards and Prizes. Each one has different requirements so please read through them all to see if any are suitable for you.
We’ve also put together a list of organisations that offer financial (as well as editorial and pastoral) support to writers.
Please submit to our Awards and Prizes via our online forms which can be found on individual award pages. The only pages that are live at the moment are for those you can enter.
Before submitting, please read the terms and conditions to ensure that your work is eligible and you are able to fulfil any additional requirements such as citizenship. Books or writing sent to our offices will not be accepted as a submission unless specifically requested from us.
Each award and prize we offer has its own submission process and deadline. Instructions for how to apply and eligibility requirements can be found on individual award pages. Please carefully check these to make sure that your submission will be accepted. Books or writing sent to our offices will not be accepted as a submission unless specifically requested by us.
To be the first to hear when an Award or Prize is opening, subscribe to our email newsletter or follow us on social media. If you are a publisher and would like to be added to our mailing list for awards, please email Khadija Ali with your details and whether you deal with fiction, non-fiction, poetry or any other literary form supported by RSL Awards and Prizes.
There are several ways that you can support the RSL; thank you! You can make a donation or become a Member on our website. If you’d like to become a patron, discuss corporate sponsorship and other opportunities, please write to us.
The RSL receives no government funding; we are grateful to all of our Members, Fellows, Patrons and donors for their support.
You can choose the membership that suits you and sign up online from wherever you are in the world. It should be really straightforward but if you have any problems, give us a call or send us an email and we will do our best to help.
If you are not paying by Direct Debit, your Membership will automatically lapse (cancel) unless you choose to renew it. If you are paying for your membership by Direct Debit, please email us at and we will help you to cancel it. Your Membership will stay active until the renewal date, at which point it will end.
Membership is non-refundable once it has been paid. Please make sure you read our terms and conditions before becoming a Member
You can renew your Membership here.
If you are having trouble accessing your account, please email us.
Visit the What’s On page to see our upcoming public programme of events and book your tickets. We’ve got a range of formats including in-person, hybrid and online only. RSL Members and Fellows receive free tickets to all of our events; find out more about becoming a Member and the other benefits of membership. Some of our events are free for everyone to watch and others will require payment or Membership of the RSL.
If you have any questions about access or are having issues booking, please email us or call us on 020 7845 4679 and we’ll be happy to help. If you don’t have an online account, please call us to book.
You will find lots of event recordings on our YouTube channel. RSL Members have access to all of our past events that have been filmed. We’ll be adding events regularly, so keep checking our library in Look & Listen. For access to the full back catalogue, find out more about RSL Membership. Or, if you are a Member already, log in and go to the News page to find the recordings.
We create interesting and inspiring events, in-person and online. We love working with authors, publishers and partners to create our programme, and we plan up to a year in advance. Our events are not connected to publishing schedules, which allows us to think creatively and work flexibly. To get an idea of the types of events we programme, have a look at what’s on.
The RSL team is based in a small, rented office. The best way to visit us is to join us for an event at one of the partner venues we love to work with. Find out what’s on and come say hello.
We are a very small team and so do not recruit very often. Please check out Who We Are for any current vacancies (this page will only be available when opportunities are). You will also find information on there about how to join us as a volunteer (when openly recruiting). Please note we only work with volunteers on our public events and cannot offer any office-based roles.
We don’t offer work experience placements, but we do often recruit for paid internships. Please keep an eye on our jobs listings under Who We Are and social media for news of available roles. Please don’t send us your CV unless in relation to a specific role – we won’t be able to look at it.
Fellowship is not open to application. Currently, Fellows are nominated by existing Fellows and then elected by our Council. You can read about the election process here.
Drawing on the success and learnings of Fellowship initiatives 40 Under 40 and RSL Open, we’re opening up our Fellowship long-term by inviting readers and writers throughout the UK to recommend potential new Fellows for consideration by a specially selected panel that will change year-on-year. The panel will be comprised of RSL Fellows and ensure that more of the Fellowship is involved in elections each year, alongside Council members, Vice-Presidents, the President and Presidents Emeriti. The RSL’s requirements of writers nominated to Fellowship remain the same under our Constitution: they have to be citizens of or resident in the UK, and they have to have published or produced two works of ‘outstanding literary merit’ (or equivalent material). The changes to the election process will help to ensure the diversity of excellent writers in the UK continues to be celebrated within the RSL Fellowship, and help form greater connections between writers and their readers.
If we hold an email address for the Fellow you’d like to contact, we can pass on your message. However, we cannot guarantee a response or share their contact details with you. Please email us with the name of the person you’d like to reach and your message for them. If you wish to post them something to them, please get in touch and we will do what we can to help. You will be required to cover all costs. We will open all messages and items to check that they are appropriate to forward on. We will not pass on any requests for financial support.
Please do not send books or writing to us unless we have specifically asked you to do so. The RSL is not able to provide any comment, feedback or guidance on your work. However, we have collated a list of organisations that offer editorial (as well as financial and pastoral) support for writers.
The RSL archive is held by Cambridge University. If you’d like to visit the archive, please get in touch with them directly.
We work with the charity Give a Book to coordinate book donations for prisons. As the requirements for donations frequently change to meet the needs of prison readers, please email our Events and Engagement Officer, Ailinn Santos, if you have any books that you’d like to donate. Please let us know the number of books you have, the titles/authors or genres and which language the books are in, so that we can pass this information on to Give a Book for consideration. Thank you!
Our Members are champions of literature. Their support makes our engagement work in schools and prisons possible and they enable us to celebrate literature in all its wonderful diversity. As a thank you, we give them all the joys of a literary festival and book club rolled into one, all year round.
