Free money costs time

It's grant season!

The NEA's amazing fiction grant is available every other year - and this is the year for fiction (next year is poetry, etc.) -- hard to keep track of because the grant is actually a 2014 grant but the application is due by February 28th, 2013. And if you think you're going to just whip it out, given it's only a one-page document, then you obviously haven't ever filled out an official government form... This thing makes a 1040 look EZ.

Kid you not.

You'll be writing bibliographies, copying and pasting files into PDF format, renaming the files with code names...it's enough to give any artist hives.

Perhaps they think they will save money by the sheer numbers of authors who give up.

But seriously people - I heard a spectacular presentation at AWP in Chicago about this, and you should apply. It's true that if you don't get the grant, you have lost a whole day of writing time. But it's something that you really CAN accomplish on a day like President's Day, when the kids are around and you get six or seven minutes with the computer every half an hour or so. This isn't brainy work, people. This is crossing T's and dotting i's. Make that day a productive day!!

it's a shockingly simple application. 25 pages of your best prose. A one-page bibliography proving eligibility (FYI: a hint, they don't want ALL your pubs, they want the minimum that makes you eligible. If you wrote seventy five books in the last ten years, yeah, JCO we know you did, still all they want is one bibliography. No judges see the eligibility page, just a bunch of government office people who throw out applications that don't follow the rules. they don't screen - they pre-screen.)

There aren't any letters of recommendation. There's no artist statement. Nada. Just a bunch of irritating formatting guidelines.

That's it.

So go get an NEA grant already.

Single-Parent Writers

It’s not fucking fair.

That’s what Cara Hoffmann announced after listening to the rest of the Pen Parentis panel talking about how they so appreciated their spouse for taking the kids for four hours here and two hours there so the writer could finish a chapter of the latest book. She raised a son on her own as a writer – and it was hard and bloody work. Well, ok, maybe not terribly bloody…but if you’ve read Cara’s phenomenal breakout novel, So Much Pretty, you might wonder.

How did she do it? The same way Mahogany Brown raised her daughter alone – as a poet it might be even harder than as a fiction writer – she told her kid that this was her career and she taught her child to treat that career with respect. Really, it’s no different to tell your child “Daddy has to write this proposal so that his company will earn 5M in the next merger acquisitions deal, so please watch Dora on the TV for a little while and then I’ll read you a story.” What you are doing is prioritizing work. And that’s damned hard, but guess what, life isn’t fair. Only people can be fair: and what each of these women admitted was how grateful they were to the industry people who understood when they were told that the deadline would be missed by a hair because, as a single mom, there was nothing to be done about it. 

But here’s what’s gorgeous: both Hoffman and Brown instilled a real respect into their kids. Writing wasn’t a hobby. It wasn’t something done for fun and laughs. Writing was a career. And by incorporating their kids into their lives this fully, these single-moms raised kids who not only respected and admired their mothers, but the kids themselves grew up to be successful artists: Hoffman’s son is in a quite-popular band, and Brown’s daughter won a writing award.

We can do this for our kids. Single parents more than anyone with a double income, should also take advantage of all the grants and fellowships out there that want to fund great writing. Try for a Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant. A Jerome Foundation Grant. Even the NEA grants are not out of your reach, if you are serious. I went to a presentation they made at AWP in Chicago, and discovered that the judges for the NEA grant change every year – you can apply with the same material up to five years in a row without any penalty. In fact they want you to reapply! We all know that taste is subjective, why not keep trying? You can’t win the lottery without playing, and getting grants is a lot like winning the lottery. Find out how these things are run, follow the rules, and apply. Your hardship bio will likely turn a few heads that otherwise are stuck in academic clouds. 

I have absolutely no idea what I'll be writing about next week. I just had a birthday. Maybe that's the problem - saw time, slipping slowly through the glass...