At Writing the Other, we strive to increase respectful representation from authors of all backgrounds as well as to uplift underrepresented and marginalized authors and readers. We hire writers and instructors from a wide range of identities and from all over the world, making their experiences, expertise, and voices accessible to all writers we can reach. To accomplish these goals, we keep our classes and programs financially affordable, ADA-accessible, and culturally equitable. We also sponsor students through our Sentient Squid Scholarship, too.
This giving season, we are launching a fundraising drive to help us continue this work next year. By donating to and/or sharing this fundraiser, you’re supporting a community of people dedicated to helping writers and creators combat cultural toxicity.
Your donations will help us teach writers how to respectfully include characters whose gender, sexual preference, race, or other major identity differs significantly from their own and create narratives that represent and reflect the world. Your donations also help ensure all writers, regardless of background or financial need, gain access to fundamental skills about representation, inclusion, and diversity to help them craft great fictional narratives found in short stories and novels, tabletop roleplaying games and video games, comics and graphic novels, TV shows and movies.
Your donations fund our operations and major programs, including:
- The Vonda N. McIntyre Sentient Squid Scholarship, which provides full and partial scholarships for our classes. From it’s inception in 2016 through this year we’ve provided over $30,000 in financial aid to approximately 20% of our alumni. Our goal for 2026 is to set aside 25% of the spots in each of our live classes and 2 free On Demand classes a month to scholarship students.
- Education and Outreach via free articles, videos, podcasts, and other resources available to the general public about creating inclusive fiction and other narratives.
- New Class Development, including more Master Classes that focus on representing specific identities and Deep Dive classes that help writers apply Writing the Other principles to different genres, mediums, and aspects of writing craft.
Our goal for our End of Year Fundraising Campaign is $10,000. You can help us reach this by:
- Donating online
- Donating by check or money order
- Spreading the word by telling others about us online and off! Like and share our posts on BlueSky, Mastodon, Threads, and Tumblr.
All the actions above will help us achieve our goal.
And remember: Writing the Other is operating as a nonprofit organization under the fiscal sponsorship of Clarion West, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.