Funding – Writing. Life.

June 13, 2019January 4, 2020

All the Things…

So much newness. I’ve been bad about updating here over this sabbatical year, so here are a few things I’ve made, written, published in the past few months. I’ll add them as is appropriate elsewhere on the site as well.

So, here are all the things…

First up is my conversation with the brilliant Anand Prahlad published on January 1, 2019 over at the Assay Interview Project. Prahlad and I talked about his book, The Secret Life of A Black Aspie. (Audio)

Second, is my conversation with the lyrical and incisive essayist, Chelsea Biondollilo. We talked about her collection, The Skinned Bird. That also appeared as part of the Assay Interview Project, on May 1, 2019. (Print)

Third, my colleague Paul Zakrzewski and I are producing a podcast for Assay (with the Missouri Audio Project). Paul’s doing the heavy lifting hosting and editing. Here’s our introductory conversation to Tried & True. If you’re into things writerly and audio, please check it out and drop Paul a note if you’d like to submit something to the podcast. Details on Assay’s website. (Print)

Here is the first episode of Tried & True. “Once a Border Crosser, Always a Border Crosser,” a conversation with Francisco Cantú (The Line Becomes A River) and Reyna Grande (The Distance Between Us). (Audio)

Here is the second episode of Tried & True. “#MeToo & Toxic Masculinity – Where Do We Go From Here?” A conversation with Yvette Johnson (The Song and The Silence) and Taylor Brorby (Coal and Oil, forthcoming). (Audio)

And finally, I wrote a guide to grant writing and grant hunting for Assay’s “In the Classroom” Series. Check it out here. (Print)

[Top Photo: Hernán Piñera]

March 19, 2014March 19, 2014

Behold the Power of the Internet! (On Crowd-funding)

A few days ago, I received an email from Eric Scott, one of my creative writing graduate students, with the subject heading: “Behold the Power of the Internet!” Just a day earlier, we’d been racking our brains, trying to raise 3,000 dollars in tuition for an Icelandic summer language program that he’d been admitted to, but for which he’d received no funding. The course would fulfill not only our PhD program’s language requirement, but would set Eric down his planned research and writing path.

We scoured our university’s available funds, searched for funds available through our academic consortium, the federal government, and surfed the sites of Scandinavian Studies organizations. Finally, I had him call the language program assistant from my office while I sent a few last “Hail Mary” emails to the Icelandic embassy in Washington. All to no avail. With the last stone seemingly turned, I admitted defeat.

Should he take a loan, Eric asked? No, I said. Better to defer admission and take the time to raise tuition for next summer. I’m very debt-averse myself, and the last thing I want to do is to send my students out into a very difficult job market saddled with financial problems.

The next morning, I got the email. Eric had raised more than 2,000 dollars in a matter of hours. How? Here’s what he said when I asked:

Once I realized that traditional funding wasn’t available for my Icelandic class, I decided to try crowd-funding. A website that I write for, The Wild Hunt (www.wildhunt.org), funds itself with an annual Indie-Go-Go fundraiser, so I had a source of advice while I was designing the campaign. I was fortunate enough that some of the places where I regularly publish – The Wild Hunt, Killing the Buddha, Witches and Pagans Magazine – helped me advertise the campaign, but most of the donations have come from family and friends.

“Ask and you shall receive,” I thought.

Eric’s model is not one I would necessarily recommend to all my students, but I think his story is instructive in a number of ways. It shows how, with enough persistence and creative thinking, you can do just about anything. It illustrates that small communities will support their members if they are doing interesting work and if they ask for help. Finally, it demonstrates that small amounts of money (much of Eric’s funding came in 5 bucks at a time) can grow to a reasonably big pile in a surprisingly short period of time.

Above all, the lesson is this: Keep dreaming. Keep working. Keep telling your stories. Occasionally, the universe surprises.

If you want to kick in 5 bucks or more to Eric’s campaign, you can do so here. He’s a little shy of his full tuition. He’s offering fun rewards in return for support.

Áfram!

[Photo: m’sieur rico]

April 13, 2012January 4, 2020

2012 Guggenheim Fellows Announced

Ah, the Guggenheims…

Other than the MacArthur “genius” grants (which you can’t apply for), these are the most coveted awards among artists, writers, and researchers. Congratulations to this year’s winners, and especially to Ruth Franklin of The New Republic, whose pieces I’ve been reading with great interest ever since we got connected on Facebook.

You can find a complete list of the 2012 fellows here.

[Photo: Jason Farrar]

February 16, 2012February 16, 2012

Epistolophilia: A Few Thoughts on the Occasion of a Book’s Birth

The day before yesterday I received a note from my publisher saying that copies of my book had arrived in the warehouse, and that I could begin announcing its publication. Though my official date of publication is March 1, 2012, the baby’s come early. It’s a strange and great feeling to know that my book is now ready for readers.

The process of writing and shepherding Epistolophilia through the production process has been long and sometimes difficult. The germ of the book began sprouting some twelve years ago when I first came across a collection of letters archived in Vilnius. Their author, a woman named Ona Šimaitė, had saved the lives of hundreds of Vilna Ghetto children and adults, and then had been arrested, tortured, and deported by the Gestapo.

The title of my book, Epistolophilia, means “a love of letters,” “an affection for letter-writing,” or “a letter-writing sickness,” and it refers to Šimaitė’s life-long dedication to her correspondence. She wrote on average 60 letters per month (therefore between 35,000 and 50,000 letters over her adult life), and not always with joy. The letters weighed on her. She often resented them and blamed the time-consuming correspondence for her inability to complete the memoir that many of her friends and colleagues were after her to write.

But to me her letters were utterly compelling. From the fragments I read in that first archive twelve years ago, I could tell I loved this woman, and I wanted to know more. Eventually, I raised enough money through grants and fellowships to collect the rest of her life-writing corpus, scattered as it was to archives in Israel, America, and other Lithuanian institutions. In the end, I suppose, I developed my own case of epistolophilia.

Now that the book is officially out, I should perhaps celebrate. But I’ve been here before, and I know that this is simply another beginning. Just as a manuscript has to be tended and cared for, so does a newly published book. And switching from an introspective and solitary way of being (that writing necessitates) to a bold, confident, and even crassly self-promoting one (that a newly published book requires) can be hard. Really hard.

Writers have fragile egos and are easily wounded. I’m no exception.

Just yesterday I sent out an email announcement to friends, acquaintances and colleagues telling them of the book’s publication. I received many kind and celebratory responses. Some people reported buying the book, others had suggestions for reading venues, and even requests for interviews. But among the sixty or seventy congratulatory emails, there was a terse one, asking to be removed from my “mailing list.” It was from a woman I’ve known for a couple of years, and someone who I genuinely thought might be interested in at least knowing about the book. I was stung. I felt stupid. I obsessed for an hour or so. But then I shook it off and moved on.

The last time around, with the publication of my first book, I did virtually no publicity to support it. I was pregnant and my newborn son beat my book by about three weeks. By the time the second “baby” (the book) arrived, I had my hands full. That said, I’m not sure I understood the importance of promotion back then, and may not have proceeded differently under alternate circumstances.

But this time, I’ve vowed not to abandon my book to its own devices just when it needs me most. I’ve vowed to be brave, bold, and even crassly self-promoting when necessary. And I won’t let the odd terse email get me down. I owe at least that much to Ona Šimaitė.

So, in the spirit of supporting and nurturing my new baby, please note that you can buy the book here. Enter the code 6AS12 to receive a 20% discount. Of course, you can also purchase it through your local bookstore or preferred online retailer.

If you enjoy Epistolophilia, I hope you’ll spread the word.

This post is part of a weekly series called “Countdown to Publication” on SheWrites.com, the premier social network for women writers.

December 29, 2011January 19, 2012

Show Me the Money: Where to Find Writers’ Grants

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I couldn’t have written Epistolophilia without writers’ grants and research fellowships. A number of different arts agencies and institutions — these are listed in the Acknowledgements to my book — helped me pay for plane tickets, get paper for printing, buy time for writing, and (perhaps most importantly) they confirmed that my writerly hunch might be a good one.

I’ve applied for hundreds of grants over the years — so many that it’s now become part of my creative process. Entering grant competitions is one more way for me to work out ideas, test the waters, and see if a project has legs. I’ve had a lot of success partly because I’ve learned how to talk about my work in a way that makes sense to granting agencies; and in part because of the numbers — the more grants I apply for, the better my chances.

I’ve had a few queries regarding grants recently: how to find them; what they fund; how the system works. So, I thought I’d give an overview here.

By far the best resource for grant, fellowship and residency announcements I’ve come across is Mira’s List, a blog kept by the extraordinary writer Mira Bartok (soon I’ll be interviewing her about her new book The Memory Palace, so stay tuned). I recommend signing up for her mailing list or checking her site frequently.

There are a few things to keep in mind when applying for grants. First, grants beget grants. That’s to say that every grant you receive increases your chances of getting another one. Second, granting agencies want to feel confident that they’re backing a winner, so be prolific. Finish your projects and publish them!

So what kind of funding is there to be had?

Of course, there are the big and prestigious awards like: the Guggenheim Foundation, Canada Council for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. These awards are generally for established writers and artists, and even to oft-published authors, applying for them can feel like a lottery. Unless you’re very senior indeed, it’s best to treat them as long-shots, and expect to be turned down so you can be pleasantly surprised (or ecstatic) when you win an award.

Easier to win are geographically determined awards, like the New York Foundation for the Arts, the CALQ (Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec or Quebec Arts Council), and the Ontario Arts Council. Most states and provinces have their own granting agencies, so check out yours. Many cities (Toronto and Kansas City are two examples ) have artists’ grants available to their residents, so check those out too, and mark deadlines on your calendar. Obviously, the smaller the geographic area defining the competition, the better your odds.

Don’t forget to check out the Fulbright Program if you’re a US citizen, have a scholarly affiliation, and need to do research abroad.

Artists’ Residencies are a good way to go for short periods (weeks or months) of uninterrupted work away from home. Some cover all costs; others ask artists to kick in a share of the cost. Sometimes there are small application fees, which annoys me, but perhaps it won’t bother you. There are well-known colonies like Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. (Here’s a good resource to check out for more artist residencies.) Universities, like McGill University in Montreal, often have writers-in-residence, so keep an eye out for those too.

Library grants can be very useful for those of us doing research. Many public and specialized libraries offer fellowships to writers. A few examples include the New York Public Library Fellowships, Chicago’s Newberry Library Fellowships, and the Laman Library Writers Fellowship in Arkansas. Around Montreal, where I live, public libraries offer fellowships to local writers. See if this is the case in your community.

Other aspects to consider are subject matter and genre. There may be grants available to fund work in a specific genre or on a particular subject area: Yiddish culture, the Holocaust, biography, American history, and poetry are just a few examples of areas in which targeted funding is available.

Finally, don’t sniff at small grants like the awards of between $500 and $1,500 offered by Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation. I won this one just as I was finishing my book, and it paid for the daycare I needed to get the final version of my manuscript ready for review at the press. Remember, grants beget grants, so the very fact of winning a small award improves your position in the next round of competitions.

When writing grant proposals, be as specific as you can. If you can give chapter breakdowns, do so. If you’ve written half the book already, then say so. If you have a publisher interested, underline that. Demonstrate how your project is new, innovative, and important. Show that it contributes to knowledge or culture. Point to your past accomplishments to underscore the fact that you finish what you start.

Above all, don’t despair. The grants system can be capricious and unjust. Brilliant projects can get rejected and duds occasionally get funded. Write the application, put it in the mail, then forget about it and get back to your work.

Which is, after all, the whole point.

[Photo: Cati Kaoe]

This post is part of a weekly series called “Countdown to Publication” on SheWrites.com, the premier social network for women writers.

December 15, 2011January 19, 2012

If You Build It, They Will Come: On Blogging, Service and Platform-Building

I started my blog almost two years ago after attending a writers’ workshop on publishing in the digital age. There wasn’t much talk of e-books or self-publishing from the presenters. Instead, they hammered a single message into us all day: you, as writers, need an electronic presence . . . preferably a blog. It’s how you control the message of who you are and what you do. Your site is Google’s gateway to you and your work.

Like many writers, I long resisted self-promotion, finding the very idea distasteful and embarrassing. But I’d learned from the experience of publishing my first (mostly overlooked) book, Silence is Death (oh! the irony of that title in this context…), that if you don’t advocate for your own work, no one will. I knew that this time around, I had to swallow pride and do things differently. So, in preparation for the publication of my second book, Epistolophilia, I decided to take the workshop’s advice. I bought a domain name (my own name as well as my books’ titles), and started a blog.

Despite my initial reticence, blogging quickly brought unexpected rewards. From the very beginning, I enjoyed the discipline regular posting required, and the way the site grew slowly, like a garden or a manuscript. I’m obsessed with archives, so I love the way blogs are keepers of their own histories. Finally, I have been delighted by the community-building opportunities that a blog creates.

A long time ago, I sat on an academic board that organized a biannual conference whose participants’ median age was going up and up. Board members worried constantly about the organization’s impending death and wondered how to attract younger attendees. “Offer them something,” I suggested. “An opportunity to win a book prize or a shot at a fellowship. Offer them something, and they will come.” So, that’s what we did. Once the association started a modest fellowship program and book prize, youthful scholars began returning to the association (and the financial investment quickly paid for itself).

The same principle works for a blog: offer something, and readers will come.

Blogs need not be navel-gazing, self-aggrandizing, or mean-spirited. When setting up the parameters of my blog, I asked myself how I could serve fellow writers. I decided on a ratio of 1:2. For every post about myself or my work, I featured at least 2 items about someone or something else: a review of a book or essay; a funding announcement or call for submissions; an author interview with a fellow writer of creative nonfiction.

By shining the spotlight (small as mine may be) on another writer, or by giving her a platform to talk about her work, I not only gain traffic on the blog (for every other writer brings friends and fans with her), I also gain insight, contacts, friends, knowledge and the occasional free book.

The more I extend myself to other writers, the more they reach back.

Writers are also readers. We are each other’s colleagues, but also each other’s audiences. Serving writers means reaching readers.

Be brave, be bold, and build. Then open yourself up to others and share.

[Photo: Shoeless Joe Jackson, by John McNab]

This post is part of a weekly series called “Countdown to Publication” on SheWrites.com, the premier social network for women writers.

December 6, 2010December 6, 2010

Money for Women: A Call for Donations

Today I got my (I think) semiannual newsletter from Money for Women in the mail. Money for Women supports the work of female and feminist writers by giving relatively small grants for very specific purposes. One grantee this year was given funds to replace an old word processor with a laptop, and when I asked the organization for support a few years ago, I decided to be honest and tell them exactly what it would be used for: daycare for my son, so I could have the much-needed hours alone to finish my book manuscript. What writers need most to is time and some simple quality equipment. Money for Women understands this. They gave me the money, and I finished my book.

But that money did more than simply pay for daycare, it also affirmed my worth as a writer. It moved me deeply to know that a group of accomplished women looked at my work and said yes, this is worth funding.

The Money for Women fund is named for Barbara Deming, a feminist, lesbian, poet, writer and activist who died young of cancer. Below the signatures of the women who sit on the grant’s board, is a quote from Deming — it’s a kind of prayer to the universe, asking for help:

“Just back from an early morning swim. There was a tiny dog there, diving for stones — which she’d carefully bring back, one after another, to the shore. Wish they were new contributions for MFW. Little dog, find us an angel!” Barbara Deming, June 28, 1981.

Whether you feel more like an angel or a dog, it’s a worthy cause. If you are in a position to help Money for Women continue to support the work of emerging female writers, they would be very happy to receive a cheque from you. And if you live the US, it’s tax-deductible.

Send what you can. Here’s the address:

Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Inc.

P.O. Box 309

Wilton, New Hampshire 03086

USA

[Photo: [noone]]

November 14, 2010November 16, 2010

Litvak Studies Institute Contest: East European Roots

The Summer Literary Seminars-Litvak Studies Institute Jewish Lithuania/Litvak Experiences Program announce a new non-fiction contest: East-European Roots: New Writing on the Old World, held this year in affiliation with Tablet Magazine, the leading online magazine providing a “new take on Jewish life,” and judged by Philip Lopate. The theme for the contest is Eastern European Histories: People’s Roots and Ancestral Heritage. The contest is open to everyone.

The contest winner will have their work prominently featured online in Tablet Magazine. Additionally, the winner will receive free airfare, tuition, and housing to our 2011 SLS/LSI Jewish Lithuania/Litvak Experiences Program. Second-place winners will receive a full tuition waiver for the 2011 SLS/LSI Jewish Lithuania/Litvak Experiences Program, and third-place winners will receive a 50% tuition discount.

A number of select contest participants, based on the overall strength of their work, will be offered tuition scholarships, as well, applicable to the 2011 SLS/LSI Jewish Lithuania/Litvak Experiences Program. Read the full guidelines below.
Details here.

Litvak Studies Institute (LSI) and Summer Literary Seminars announce their joint 2011 Jewish Lithuania program in Vilnius.

It will take place July 31-August 13. Core faculty includes: Regina Kopilevich, Vytautas Toleikis, Efraim Zuroff, and a number of other distinguished individuals (TBA). The program will be held in parallel with the SLS-Lithuania program, and will share with SLS such eminent writers-in-residence as Ed Hirsch, Robin Hemley, Joseph Kertes, and Rebecca Seiferle.

[Photo: ~Liliana]

October 5, 2010October 5, 2010

Summer Literary Seminars Contest: Kenya, Montreal, Lithuania

Summer Literary Seminars is announcing its annual Unified (Kenya, Montreal and Lithuania) Literary Contest, held this year in affiliation with The Walrus Magazine. Jayne Anne Phillips will be judging the fiction, and Matthew Zapruder the poetry.

Contest winners in the categories of fiction and poetry will have their work prominently featured online in Canada’s premiere literary magazine, The Walrus, as well as published in print in a participating literary journal in the United States (TBA). Additionally, they will have the choice of attending (airfare, tuition, and housing included) any one of the SLS 2011 programs – in Montreal, Quebec (June 12 – 25); Vilnius, Lithuania (August); or Nairobi-Lamu, Kenya (December).

Second-place winners will receive a full tuition waiver for the program of their choice, and third-place winners will receive a 50% tuition discount.

A number of select contest participants, based on the overall strength of their work, will be offered tuition scholarships, as well, applicable to the SLS 2011 programs.

Read the full guidelines at: http://sumlitsem.org/slscontest.html

[Photo of Habitat 67 Montreal: swisscan]

August 26, 2010August 3, 2011

On Literary Friendship

It’s grant season, so I’m writing my yearly emails asking friends and mentors to act as references in various competitions. I’ve been particularly overwhelmed by the encouragement and unqualified support I’ve received on all fronts, even from writer-friends I’ve never met in person and only know through email. All this literary love, as it were, has gotten me thinking about friendship.

It’s a lot easier to put your head down and keep working when you know you have supporters behind you.

One of my first real literary friends (not counting my husband and my friend, Mark, who reads all my manuscripts) came into my life about two years ago when I published a short piece from my now forthcoming book, Epistolophilia.

It was a bad time. My writing was stalled and I had begun to despair at whether I would ever finish the monster that had already eaten up some six years of my life but whose end was not at all in sight. Then one day an email arrived from another writer, a Toronto novelist, saying that my piece was the most exciting thing he’d read in a particular journal for years.

This note from a perfect stranger who had taken the time to track me down for no other reason than to extend himself in friendship gave me a boost that may just be responsible for my having finished my manuscript.

Literary friendships can be harder to come by than you would think. Writers are loners and they are competitive. We suffer from schadenfreude and pettiness, but our worst vice is, without a doubt, envy. And envy coupled with self-doubt is a very bad combination indeed.

It’s been over a year since I consciously started to try and follow that Toronto novelist’s example, and to extend myself to other writers. To do so, I had to work on conquering my jealousies.

I decided that when another author got an agent, I would be happy for her. When a writer I knew signed a contract, won an award or got a grant, I would celebrate his accomplishment. I would take the success of others to mean that I too could succeed.

I don’t know if it’s the new outlook, or if my work has actually gotten that much better, but there’s a lot more literary love in my life since I made the change.

So, to my writerly friends: thank you.

Because of you, I am less alone at my desk.

[Photo: Jenser (Clasix-Design)]