This list is a work in progress and will con­tin­ue to be updat­ed as we dis­cov­er more resources. If you have a resource to sug­gest, please email us at info@​jewishbooks.​org.

The resources below pro­vide infor­ma­tion on orga­ni­za­tions pro­vid­ing finan­cial assis­tance for authors, active dig­i­tal series and pro­mo­tions for authors, and ideas to help you begin your own vir­tu­al pro­mo­tion jour­ney in a cre­ative way.

Finan­cial Relief for Authors 

Below are funds and/​or grants for authors who are finan­cial­ly impact­ed by COVID-19.

The Authors Guild lists oppor­tu­ni­ties for finan­cial relief as well as webi­na­rs ded­i­cat­ed to lit­er­ary mar­ket­ing strate­gies, self-pro­mo­tion, and the book pub­lish­ing process. They also have writ­ing com­pe­ti­tion and grants.

Pen Amer­i­ca expand­ed its Writ­ers’ Emer­gency Fund to get cash to pub­lished writ­ers who face acute finan­cial need.

Artist Relief is an ini­tia­tive orga­nized by nation­al arts grant­mak­ers that are dis­trib­ut­ing grants to artists finan­cial­ly impact­ed by COVID-19.

Carnegie Fund for Authors pro­vides funds for pub­lished authors who are in need of emer­gency finan­cial assistance.

Vir­tu­al Lit­er­ary Events and Pro­mo­tions For New Releases

Below are orga­ni­za­tions and resources for pro­mot­ing new books through vir­tu­al channels. 

Our Net­work Con­fer­ence is now mov­ing to a vir­tu­al plat­form, where authors pitch their books in real-time and engage in workshops. 

We recent­ly launched JBC Authors at the Table, where we sit down with an author each week to chat about their lat­est work. If inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing, please email info@​jewishbooks.​org.

Lit­er­ary Hub launched The Vir­tu­al Book Chan­nel, which pro­vides a series of orig­i­nal pro­gram­ming geared to spot­light authors’ latest/​upcoming books through inter­views and conversation.

A Mighty Blaze is a social media ini­tia­tive found­ed by authors Car­o­line Leav­itt and Jen­na Blum, help­ing authors whose book tours were can­celled due to COVID-19 reach their audi­ence via Face­book, Insta­gram, and Twit­ter. They intro­duce a new book every Tues­day on Face­book along with the author.

Book­con is host­ing a Vir­tu­al Author Tour Series where they livestream week­ly vir­tu­al events with authors and pub­lish­ers about new books.

Vir­tu­al Lit­er­ary Content 

Below are plat­forms and resources for expo­sure to new lit­er­ary con­tent and authors, as well as a way to sup­port fel­low authors and share their vir­tu­al activ­i­ties. Please con­tact the spon­sor­ing orga­ni­za­tion or per­son for infor­ma­tion about your own par­tic­i­pa­tion, if it’s of interest. 

For poet­ry month, fol­low along with JBC’s vir­tu­al poet­ry read­ing series to our Insta­gram and Face­book sto­ries. These include one poem read each day by a writer. For con­sid­er­a­tion in the series, please con­tact simona@​jewishbooks.​org.

If you are inter­est­ed in con­tribut­ing to JBC’s PB Dai­ly, please con­tact becca@​jewishbooks.​org. We also are accept­ing sub­mis­sions to JBC’s lit­er­ary mag­a­zine Paper Brigade. Guide­lines for sub­mis­sion can be found here.

We have moved our Unpack­ing the Book series to a vir­tu­al plat­form, where two authors engage in con­ver­sa­tion about their lat­est books.

Cof­fee House Press has launched a new ini­tia­tive called Cof­fee House Writ­ers Project, which sup­ports those in the lit­er­ary com­mu­ni­ty whose liveli­hoods are impact­ed due to COVID-19. They com­mis­sion orig­i­nal, short, dig­i­tal-only lit­er­ary works includ­ing poet­ry and prose.

Shel­ter in Poems from Acad­e­my of Amer­i­can Poets asks read­ers to share poems that give them ​“courage, solace, and action­able ener­gy” that they post on their website.

Sym­pho­ny Space Lit­er­a­ture has actors read fic­tion short sto­ries on the Sym­pho­ny Space ​“select­ed shorts” pod­cast, which is also post­ed on their website.

Children’s author and illus­tra­tor Grace Lin hosts a pod­cast called ​“Kids ask Authors” where she asks guest authors ques­tions from child readers.

Words With­out Bor­ders launched ​“Voic­es from the Pan­dem­ic,” accept­ing lit­er­ary pieces from con­trib­u­tors respond­ing to the pandemic.

Scholas­tic is pro­vid­ing a ​“Learn at Home” pro­gram for kids whose schools closed due to COVID-19. It pro­vides dif­fer­ent ways to keep kids inter­act­ing and learn­ing through books.

Vir­tu­al Book Clubs

Zib­by Owens hosts a pod­cast called ​“Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books” where she engages in con­ver­sa­tion with authors about their lat­est books. She recent­ly released a new book club that meets every Tues­day, and hosts an Insta­gram live chan­nel called ​“ZTV” where she inter­views mul­ti­ple authors daily.

WNYC and the New York Pub­lic Library part­nered to pro­duce Get Lit With All of It, a month­ly, social media, live-stream book club host­ed by WNYC’s Ali­son Stewart.

Quar­an­tine Book Club allows you to join in on dai­ly zooms to hear authors talk about their work and ask questions.

Oth­er Gen­er­al Resources: 

Arts:

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera is stream­ing ​“Night­ly Met Opera Streams” on their website.

Lunch Doo­dles with Mo Willems pro­vides week­ly videos of live draw­ing and teaching.

Brave Writer has made some of their paid resources free until the end of April that pro­vides tips and activ­i­ties to enhance writ­ing skills.

Book­shop is an online book­store that sup­ports inde­pen­dent book­stores, which also has an affil­i­ate pro­gram that ​“allows any­one to earn a com­mis­sion from sell­ing books, while giv­ing back to bookstores.”

Cook­ing:

Kitchn has a free 20-episode video series called ​“The Kitchn Cook­ing School” that gives a crash course on the basics and essen­tials of cooking.

Jew­ish Food Soci­ety launched a new project called Tradish that shares fam­i­ly recipes with ingre­di­ents from the pantry. Along with the recipes, they’re shar­ing three-step cook­ing demos of these dish­es on their Instagram.

Epi­cu­ri­ous came up with an all pantry 14-day meal plan for ​“coro­na and oth­er per­ilous times” and has oth­er arti­cles relat­ed to cook­ing under quarantine.

America’s Test Kitchen is post­ing arti­cles, videos, and how-to’s for cook­ing dur­ing the coronavirus.