The Mothership Jump-9 Writers Grant is a $9,000 grant for new and upcoming writers in the Mothership community. The goal is to develop and encourage new talent by offering funding, mentorship, development, and access to contacts and resources in order to create an outstanding Mothership zine.
Over the course of a year, grant recipients will meet regularly with the Tuesday Knight Games team and other Mothership collaborators. We will provide feedback and mentorship to the recipients to aid them in completing their zine by Mothership Month 2027.
What are we looking for?
We're looking for passionate Mothership fans with a strong vision for a short (32-36 page absolute max, closer to 20 pages preferred, think Orphans) horror-centric Mothership module. We are not looking for toolkits, settings, new rules, new classes, etc.
Give us your best horror adventure.
A good candidate can take feedback and work collaboratively. They have a good track record of writing and completing what they start. They have played and run Mothership and are fans of the game. We are looking for someone who can work independently and is excited about this opportunity.
Disqualifications
- Applicants must be 18 years or older.
- As per our third party publishing (3PP) contract, TKG does not accept any written or illustrative work made by generative AI. Breaking this can cause you to be banned for life from making content for Mothership.
- If you have made over $15k on a Mothership crowdfunding campaign or over $30k in from any other RPG crowdfunding campaigns.
- If you are an employee of TKG or one of our close contractors (you know who you are).
- Any bigoted content (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.).
We reserve the right to reject applicants for any reason, without explanation.
Additionally, grant recipients can be released from the grant at any time at TKG's discretion. They will be allowed to keep any funds distributed to them, but are not owed any funds not already paid.
How to apply
- Before anything else, come up with a great idea for a Mothership module.
- Submit a Mothership Jump-9 Grant Application by September 30, 2026 11:59 PM CDT (UTC-5).
- A team of judges will review the applicants and select finalists for zoom interviews in October.
- The final grant recipients will be announced in November during Mothership Month 2026.
- Grant recipients will receive a contract and receive their first round of funding a few weeks after the announcement.
What does the Jump-9 Grant cover?
The grant is divided in two parts: $4,000 for the writer (the grant recipient) and $5,000 is set aside for contractors and manufacturing and other costs. The $4,000 payment is split up into three milestones: $1,500 up front, $1,000 when the rough draft is complete, and $1,500 when the final draft is complete. Additionally, TKG will buy ~100-200 copies of the book at wholesale to sell on our store.
The $5,000 for contractors and manufacturing will be paid from TKG directly to the contractors and vendors as needed. Any leftover funds will be distributed to the grant recipient at the end of the grant.
Note: All payments made to the recipient count as freelance income for tax purposes. It is your responsibility to comply with your local tax laws.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your module doesn't have to definitively end in one session. But we're looking for shorter adventures, 1-3 sessions-ish. Rather than a campaign. Orphans is a good example of the kind of scope we're looking for. Sean misspoke on a recent interview when he mentioned that we were looking for "one shots," he just meant that we're looking for small self-contained adventures and not long campaigns (or toolkits, or settings, etc.).
No. One submission per applicant. If you have five ideas, pick your best one.
If you are selected for the grant, you can work with any number of co-authors you wish, or even as a team. However, only one of you should apply and for the purposes of the grant (and payment) only one of you will be the recipient and have access to mentorship and development calls with our team. Please let us know in your application if you plan on working with a partner.