I hope you never need financial aid from ASJA’s Writers Emergency Assistance Fund, but you would be surprised at the well-known, well-established writers who have asked for help. We recently awarded $4,000 (WEAF’s maximum grant these days) to a National Magazine Award winner with amazing credits who had been unable to work because he and his wife had been focused for more than a year on helping his mother-in-law, a cancer patient, through an all-encompassing and harrowing legal battle that sucked up all their available assets and left them deep in debt.
Since it was established in 1982, WEAF – ASJA’s Writer’s Emergency Assistance Fund – has awarded more than $500,000 in grants to writers who are unable to work for any of these reasons:
- Age
- Illness
- Disability
- Natural Disaster (one applicant was wiped out by a hurricane)
- An extraordinary professional crisis.
You never know when you’ll need WEAF. We heard from former ASJA member Chrystle Fiedler after she was badly injured in a bizarre supermarket accident – she was literally bowled over by a store employee and was left with a bad concussion that led to trigeminal neuralgia, a nerve disorder so painful that it is known as the “suicide disease.” In Chrystle’s words the pain felt as if “someone was screwing a screw driver into my upper teeth.” She had been on multiple painkillers, and was able to work – if at all – for only two hours a day, lying down. Family members tried to help but had limited resources. Her business was in shambles.
Who could have predicted that accident? If it happened to you, do you have enough money socked away to get through months of medical treatment and excruciating pain that makes writing almost impossible?
Which brings us to why WEAF needs you. We exist on contributions, mostly from ASJA members. When they pay dues, they’re asked to contribute to WEAF.
More help is needed, though. Please consider making a (tax deductible) monthly contribution. Can you spare $5, $10, $50 or more? Small amounts from enough people add up. If a few hundred people could make monthly contributions that averaged $20, WEAF would receive more than $100,000 per year. Go to the WEAF website and click Donate to WEAF at the bottom of the page.
No one knows writers’ needs better than other writers. We’re in a tough business that can be unforgiving when the unforeseen happens.
WEAF will be here for you if you need us. Right now, we need you. Please help us help other writers.