Some Random Advice from Mirabee on Grants, Fellowships, Residencies and Contests

Hi everyone,



Lately I have been getting a lot of mail—actually, I always get a lot of mail—and much of it the last month has been about some of the same things so I thought I would just post a list of some FAQs that keep ending up in my inbox. It is almost September, after all, and Sept. 15th is a big date for application deadlines. October is the big month for Fulbright deadlines.



Before I go into that though, a reminder, if you write me at:

mirabartok@yahoo.com, please make sure you check ALL my FAQs before writing, okay?

Here is the FAQ link for applying for grants and Fellowships: http://miraslist.blogspot.com/2009/07/faqs-grants.html

Here's the link for residencies, art colonies and retreats: http://miraslist.blogspot.com/2009/09/faqs-residencies-artist-colonies.html

For Fulbright Awards: http://miraslist.blogspot.com/2009/04/fubright-grants-inside-scoop.html



Okay, on to those random questions of yours:



1. HELP ME PLEASE! I am desperate! I need a grant right now! Can I apply for a grant that would start next month?



No. For most grants or large fellowships you must apply nine months to a year in advance. However, if you need emergency funding, check my sidebar on the right hand side for some links to emergency funding organizations.

Also--PLEASE DO NOT SOUND DESPERATE in your application. No foundation wants to give money to people who sound like victims. It is better to present yourself as a resourceful person. Tell them how many other places you are applying to and what you are doing to get out of your unfortunate situation.



2. If I write a nice letter to you, asking you to help me find a grant or a special residency, will you help me?



Nope. PLEASE DO THE WORK. I do this for free. I know I am crazy. I get barely any donations. I think I make less than two cents an hour doing this. Actually—not even that much. Basically, I bring you to the water but you have to fish for yourself, okay? There are special circumstances where I do help individuals, like a couple people who have limited internet access because they are living in countries like Iran and China where important sites are censored and blocked from view. Otherwise—do the work yourself.



3. I run a residency (or a grant foundation) and want you to post my deadline announcement. What's the best way to send you info?



NOT in a pdf. NOT in a word doc. Please send a BRIEF announcement in the body of an email to mirabartok@yahoo.com and include deadline date, cost if there is on, stipend or award if there is one, location and something descriptive about the program. Also, which disciplines can apply. And please send me info way in advance. Thanks.



4. I am a poet who is nearly sixty years old (or an artist, composer, etc.) and have been rejected by every place I apply to. Can you help me figure out why?



Sorry—I can't. I just don't have time to critique people's work. I suggest you get involved with some kind of community—writing group, artist critique group, etc. and get feedback that way.



5. What is your opinion about writing contests that charge a fee to submit my piece?



I think some contests are good and some are bad. Here's my opinion, for what it's worth: Look to see what the big prize is. If the entry fee is, say, 10-25 dollars and the biggest prize is only 200 dollars, well, that's pretty bogus to me. That means they are just making money off you. And do they mention who the judge is? ONLY send work to contests if the judge is a reputable LITERARY writer, not some hack and if the contest is run by a literary magazine or a reputable literary online journal. The Council on Literary Magazines and Small Presses (CLMP) helps to set standards for good ethical practices among literary magazines. You can acquire a great list of presses and journals from their site: http://www.clmp.org/about/dir.html.



You can get a great listing of contests that are worth applying to on the Poets & Writers website: www.pw.org. And if you are a writer and don't subscribe to their inexpensive but invaluable magazine, I do believe you are a doody head.



By the way, you can apply this info to art and music and film contests. Just because someone is offering you money out there doesn't mean they are legit.



6. I'm a writer. Some of my friends say I should send my work to literary journals—ones like Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Yale Review, etc. But I notice that most of those journals don't pay you a cent! They just give you two free copies and publish your work. So why bother?



Good question. Well, here's the long answer: Many great writers started out in those smaller circulation literary magazines. And many acclaimed authors (and I'm talking LITERARY authors here, not the Danielle Steele kind of commercial bestselling blockbuster author) still send pieces to these magazines because they believe in them and they also respect the audience who reads them. That audience really loves great literature and brilliant, exquisite prose. They read the harder books, the ones you actually have to use your brain to read, not your basic page turner. i.e. We are not talking The DaVinci Code, okay? Nothing wrong with that stuff for entertainment but let's face it folks—it's not great literature.



Case in point—an earlier version of one of my chapters from The Memory Palace (which just made the New York Times bestselling list in paperback for next week :-)) was first published in Kenyon Review. And from there, KR submitted it to be in the Best American Essay series where it was mentioned as a notable essay. That stuff means something to agents and editors at larger houses who are looking for literary writers. And it meant a lot to me. You can't put a price tag on that kind of thing. These journals barely limp along financially. It is a labor of love. I used to work at one as an intern and certainly didn't do it for the money. Okay....I'm done ranting now....



A couple last things:



To people who run international residencies and want me to post deadlines: PLEASE have someone check your grammar and spelling. I spend a lot of time rewriting posts that are too hard to understand. PLEASE tell me WHERE you are located exactly. You'd be surprised how many people ask me to post about a residency with no info on what country it is, even on their website.



And, last but not least.....a reminder: if you are looking for a residency in a specific country, please don't write me and ask. Please check out my residency links on my sidebar because the places I list are amazing and you can search for each individual country.



Thanks....and hey, I'm going to bug you guys for donations soon, just so you know. Although my book is doing really well, I haven't made my advance back yet (a long and mysterious process that even I don't completely understand). I will actually run out of money in November with nothing on the horizon. I do this for free. I do not charge you. People say I am insane because I do not ask for a yearly subscription. I don't want to because I believe in a Gift Economy at heart. So pay it forward—send a donation if you can (see my sidebar for information on how to do that) and if you can't, spread some helpful information to a friend.



Thanks...I love you guys.

Mirabee



p.s. I forgot to mention this one:



I DO NOT POST ABOUT CONTESTS, PUBLISHING OR EXHIBITION OPPORTUNTIES, etc. unless they also offer a residency or there is some fellowship involved. So to all you wonderful places asking me to post about your upcoming artist call for an exhibit or for your writing contest, please go to my facebook MIRASLIST page and post it there, okay? If you write a short announcement it will also be tweeted on twitter.



By the way—I really, really try to post residencies that either don't cost money or that offer a stipend or that are pretty inexpensive. So if you send me an announcement for a residency that costs a lot of money, don't be surprised if I don't post it, okay? Thanks.

Interview with Gigi Rosenberg, Author of The Artist’s Guide to Grantwriting

Today I am happy to introduce you to Gigi Rosenberg whose book, The Artist’s Guide to Grant Writing: How to Find Funds and Write Foolproof Proposals for the Visual, Literary and Performing Artist is coming out TOMORROW, December 14th, in stores nationwide. I was fortunate to grab her for a few questions before she sets out to promote her book. Gigi Rosenberg is a writer, speaker, and presentation coach. Her writing has been published by Seal Press, The Oregonian, Writer’s Digest, performed at Seattle’s On the Boards, and heard on Oregon Public Radio. As a presentation coach, she draws on her background in writing, visual art, theater, and corporate communications to teach artists and entrepreneurs how to give stellar public presentations.

Gigi, thanks so much for visiting us today. I’d like to start out by asking you to tell us a little about your new book and what motivated you to write it?

Mira: Thanks for having me! I’m a huge fan of your writing, your art, and your blog. I wrote The Artist’s Guide to Grant Writing because I couldn’t find a comprehensive and inspiring reference guide as I was looking for and applying for grants and residencies for my own work as a writer. I also realized that -- in my workshops -- a book would be so useful -- students can only absorb so much in a two or three-hour session and it’s great to have a “go-to” book for when you're researching, or finessing, or feeling demoralized by grants, or the business side of being an artist. Also, I grew up in a family of visual artists so as a kid I thought that everybody made their living as an artist! I wrote the book to empower artists and to share what I knew and what I gleaned from dozens of interviews with artists and funders about how to talk about and write about your work so that others want to support it.

In your process of research and writing, did you learn anything new about grant writing that you didn’t know before?

My biggest surprise was realizing that “famous” artists struggle in the same way I do. There’s little difference between the time “before you succeed” and “after you succeed.” I always thought that famous artists had it easier because they’d already “made it.” In fact: every new project is scary. The only difference is that when you’re experienced you might manage the fear better or know that you just have to keep working to move through it. On the subject of grants I realized how many more opportunities there were than I thought there were. I also learned that the most important thing to do is to learn to write about your work as if you didn't create it -- that’s the challenge and that’s why you need other people to help. They can help you find the language to describe what you do and why you want to have money to make it.

I always say that too, that is, write the application as if you were someone else. I think it helps to distance yourself from talking about your work, which is really hard for some people to do. Sometimes it is the weakest link in an application and it should be the strongest, aside from the work itself. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see artists make in grant applications?

The biggest mistake that artists make is that they think grant application reviewers can read minds! Artists don’t realize that a reviewer is likely seeing their work for the first time and not everything will be obvious. Even though it’s hard, an artist has to explain what the project is in detail and why she wants to make it. Reviewers need the artist to connect the dots for them. The second biggest mistake is that artists don’t spend enough time on the work sample -- it must be not only their best work, but well-documented, and related to the grant. Lastly: budgets scare some artists and they don’t make them specific enough so they detail how the money will be spent. Think about it: when you give money away, you want to know how exactly the money is being spent.

I agree. Very good points. For me the budget one hits close to home! Even I have a hard time with the budget component of a grant application and I’ve written dozens of grants. But you get through it and if you don’t know how to do it, you ask someone to help. Sometimes artists are just too afraid to ask other professionals for help. Anyway, would you mind sharing with my readers five very short kernels of wisdom from your book?

What I learned from all the interviews I did is that 1) To win a grant, you have to apply. This may seem so dumb. But it’s true: your chances of winning are guaranteed to be zero if you don’t apply. Successful grant writers don’t let the competition dissuade them. 2) There are times when I’m better off continuing to build my body of work rather than applying for a grant. Preparing a grant application takes time. I have to decide if the time is worth it. 3) I always need an editor even though I’m a writer. 4) I can’t do a great job on a grant application if I don’t give myself enough time. 5) I don’t let one rejection get me down. I stand up again and get back to the work at hand.

You called me a few months back to talk to me about a chapter in your book. Can you tell my readers a little about that chapter and what you learned from writing it and why you think it's important in your book?

I think the chapter you’re referring to is “Stand Out from the Crowd” which is about how to take a good application and make it great. The best advice from that chapter was from you -- which is to write the grant as if you’re writing to a specific person, a friend even, someone waiting to fall in love with your project. If you write to an “institution” you’ll sound so formal and generic that it won’t grab anybody!

What do you hope your readers will get out of reading your book, Gigi?

I want readers to receive three things from the book: practical advice about where to find grants (including subscribing to your blog!), detailed advice on how to write a winning application, and inspiration so they keep applying for opportunities and keep making art. Most artists work solo and the danger of solitude is that you can lose hope. I want readers to have an inspiring and extremely practical reference guide to the world of grants and fundraising! Please let your readers know that they can download an excerpt from the book from the website: www.theartistsguidetograntwriting.com and they can get a free grant writing tip sheet when they sign up for my occasional updates -- which they can unsubscribe from at any time at www.gigirosenberg.com

Mira: Thanks for having me today. I can’t wait to read your memoir. When are you coming to Portland?!

Hah! Good question. I have never been there but plan to go sometime this coming year while I’m on book tour, or at least when the paperback comes out. I’ll let you know! Thanks so much for your time and insight. I look forward to reading your book!

For updates on Gigi’s workshops and to order her book (you can also order through my site as well), go here: http://gigirosenberg.com/book/

The Nuts and Bolts of Grant Writing

Happy Sunday! I hope you got a chance to read composer/pianist Steven Schoenberg's interview from this past week but if you haven't, please check it out! And if you are in NYC this coming weekend, I highly suggest that you do what I intend to do, which is go hear Steven perform at the Rubin Museum of Art on Friday, May 7th, at 7 pm.

On another note, this past week I was on a panel in Boston, talking about grants, fellowships and residencies for the Artist's Professional Toolbox Program, a career development program for artists in Massachusetts. Also participating on the panel were Mary Sherman, Executive Director of Transcultural Exchange and Alex Roger Pittman, freelance grantwriter. I was thrilled to see that about two thirds of the group attending were Mira's List fans! And I got to meet a couple of them after the event. For those of you attending, my apologies for being a little slap-happy sometimes and for periodically biting the microphone. I was pretty beat that day! But it seemed like the event was pretty successful despite my quirky ramblings and microphone issues.

Today I thought that I would post the hand-out that I sent everyone home with at the event. It's a condensed version of my article, "Finding Money for Your Dreams" (click on the title if you'd like to read the article in its entirety). It is also posted on the Massachusetts Cultural Council website, Artsake, earlier this year. You might find some of the points below on grantwriting helpful to you if you are in the middle of that process right now.

Cheers,

Mirabee

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF GRANT WRITING

What is the secret formula to getting a grant? Here is what you need to do:

1. Work really hard at what you do. You can’t get a grant if you have nothing to show.

2. Get your work out there. Except for rare situations, you won’t get funding if you don’t have a track record. Grant givers want to know that art is your passion, not your hobby.

3. Do your homework. First, figure out what kind of grant you need. Here are just a few kinds available to you: emergency grants, travel and research grants, residency fellowships, emerging artist grants, collaborative grants, production grants and more. Next, learn how to search for grants and discern which ones are right for you. If you’ve never published a story before or have never had a one person show, you are not going to apply for a Guggenheim. Read the eligibility requirements. Are you emerging or mid-career? You can be an artist in your fifties, but still be considered emerging if you haven’t had many shows.

4. Know where to look. The Internet is now the best source for your grant search so make friends with technology. There are dozens of websites that post grants and other opportunities. If you are a visual artist, visit the College Art Association and the New York Foundation for the Arts, if you are a writer, check out the listings on Pen-American and Poets & Writers. There are hundreds more so please check my blog for more links.

5. Put yourself out there. Cultivate professional relationships by attending conferences, residencies, workshops, retreats, etc. Check out blogs, list-serves and forums and connect with other artists on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites.

6. Have your ammunition ready. Before applying for a grant, you should have these things at your fingertips: if you are an artist, have a great artist statement. Keep it to around 250 words. Talk about your artistic approach and who your influences were, what your accomplishments have been, what your personal vision is. You also need a good paragraph-long bio. The same goes for writers. Have a professional looking CV and published reviews about your work if you have them. You will need recommendation letters from professionals in your field, so ask for these weeks in advance. Last but not least, you need a good solid work sample for each application. Have you revised that story so it is absolutely polished? Have you double-checked to see if your jpegs are overexposed? Strive for perfection. Your work sample should be the best example of what you do.

7. Start local but dream global. If you’ve never applied for a grant before try your hand at a local arts council grant first. Ask for enough money to attend a writing conference or an artist residency in another state. Most local grants are between $500-1000. That will buy you a plane ticket and more.

8. Ask only for what you need and show that you are resourceful. You have a better chance of getting a grant if you ask for less than what is offered. Also, let the foundation know that you are trying to find funding from other sources, but not for the exact same thing. You can apply to the first organization for travel expenses and another for art supplies or something else.

9. Be clear about what you want. The same rules apply for grants as they do for good writing. Your application should be focused and concise. Use direct verbs and don’t be redundant or vague. Let them know why your work stands out from the others. What you specifically will do with the money. Where else you are looking for funding. Why this opportunity is important at this time in your career. How it will impact your community and the art world at large. Serve the project, not yourself.

10. Pay attention to what the foundation asks for. If you have to write a proposal, note the order of things you are asked to discuss and follow that order. As for page length, if they ask for up to five-pages, don’t submit ten. But by all means, use all five pages if you need them. After you have filled everything out check for mistakes and make sure you send the application on time.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT

Grants beget grants, so do residencies, fellowships and any kind of award. When foundations see them listed on your resume, they’ll assume you have resourcefulness and drive. This ripple effect also affects others. Honor those who have helped you, send thank you cards; encourage others to apply for things. And never ever throw in the towel, even if you have a year of rejections. Don’t put stones in your pockets and walk into the river if you don’t get NEA. Go to the river and toss a stone in instead. See the ripple effect of your own making. Grants beget grants beget grants, which inspires others to apply, which in turn begets change and courage and brings forth art and stories that do not destroy but heal. We need your poems and paintings, your songs and films to keep us going. You need money, time and a place to create. So toss a pebble in the stream, open your journal, your studio door or violin case and begin.

INTERVIEW WITH DAN BLASK, PROGRAM COORDINATOR FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS CULTURAL COUNCIL

Greetings all! Recently I was fortunate to interview Dan Blask from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) who spoke candidly and quite encouragingly about applying for fellowships and grants. Dan coordinates programs for individual artists at the MCC, including grants for filmmakers, composers, and writers of fiction, nonfiction, dramatic writing, and poetry. He also writes for ArtSake, MCC's blog about new art and the creative process. Dan received his MA in Creative Writing (Playwriting) from Boston University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By the way, although MCC is regional program in Massachusetts, the things he talks about are applicable to many grant programs both here in the US and abroad.



Dan, thanks so much for joining us! I know this is a busy season for you. Anyway, I noticed on your bio that you studied playwriting at Boston University. How do you balance your creative life while working full-time at the MCC as well as writing for ArtSake, the MCC's blog?

A lot of the staff members at MCC are also artists: writers, painters, dancers, musicians. I think the job lends itself to doing creative work, since the hours are, for the most part, consistent, and we’re all exposed to a lot of different ideas and art in all disciplines. But finding that life/work/artwork balance is a big, ongoing, back and forth struggle for almost every artist-with-a-day-job I know. Do you work an arts-related job and risk spending creative energy you should save for your own art? Do you work in an unrelated field and risk not enjoying it or being detached from daily exposure to a field you love? I certainly don’t know. You try different things, I guess. For now, I’m trying this, and I’m enjoying it.

You certainly nailed the classic dilemma of a working artist! And speaking of dealing with that balance and trying to find extra funding, what advice do you have for someone applying for a grant or fellowship for the very first time?

Basically, I advise a sort of zen hyper-focus/total emotional detachment. (Not possible, I know, but a worthy goal.) In other words, focus on exactly what the grant is asking for, and shape your grant application accordingly. Then, after it’s sent, you have to disallow yourself from getting too attached to any one grant or fellowship application. This is really, really hard to do. But you’re doing yourself a disservice if you dwell on, or, even worse, count on, receiving a competitive grant, because while receiving a grant means your work spoke to someone, not receiving a grant doesn’t mean the opposite of that. There are inevitably more artists of excellence than there are grants, fellowships, or slots at a residency. I know not winning a grant feels like it has a deep meaning, about you, about your work. But believe me, all it means is that this group of individuals, on this particular day, went a different direction. So, onward.

As to other thoughts: send your strongest work as your work sample, especially in a grant review like MCC’s Artist Fellowships, where it’s anonymously judged based only on artistic quality and creative ability. If you have any doubts about what is your strongest work, it’s always a good idea to ask the opinion of a trusted associate what work that is. Another viewpoint can be very helpful. And otherwise, my advice would be to prepare yourself but don’t be intimidated. If you need some clarification, don’t hesitate to contact the organization. I know I’d rather hear from an applicant than receive a mishandled application, or worse yet, receive no application at all because the applicant was discouraged.

That's great advice. So what are some things in an application that make someone really stand out from the crowd?

It’s an interesting question. In the Artist Fellowships, there are two rounds of review. The first round is an elimination round of sorts, and standing out in the wrong way – generally, because the craft is weak – can get you eliminated. So you have to make sure the craft is there.

Then, in the second round, the panelists are really drilling down and looking closer. And here, an artistic voice that feels truly unique and fully realized can stand out in the best way, especially when you’re dealing with dozens of applications. As you pointed out, I have a theater background, and in drama we talk about “lean forward” moments, a point in a play where an audience member is so suddenly drawn in that there is almost a physical reaction. That can happen in any discipline. Think of the panelists as people seriously in love with art (which they almost certainly are) rather than bureaucrats (which they probably aren’t). Most of the panelists, despite their fancy-pants titles, are just reg’lar humans who want to be moved by art. So don’t let other considerations overwhelm your work’s ability to transport them.

I always tell people that same thing when I speak about this subject—that panelists are real people who participate in these things out of their love for art. I've been a panelist for competitions before and I'm certainly no bureaucrat! So thanks for mentioning that. On the same note, I know that some of my readers would be curious to know how the MCC picks the judges for the artists fellowship program. Would you mind telling us a little bit about how that process works?

My colleague Kelly Bennett and I divide up the disciplines, then each solicits panelists and (if applicable) first-round readers for the different panels. The panels are anonymously judged, and the range of the work submitted is, aesthetically, very wide. So we have to make sure the panel represents as many aesthetic perspectives as possible and is diverse in every way, including background, geography, and gender, as well as the different perspectives of artists, presenters, critics, etc. We search online, we ask for recommendations, we read trade magazines, we look at other grant and award programs. There is a mixture of in-state and out-of-state panelists, and we work hard to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.

Obviously we want knowledgeable and accomplished panelists, not only for the functional reason that they’re doing a very important job for us – the most important for the purposes of this grant - but also because applicants deserve to know that their work was reviewed by respected voices in their respective fields.

Dan, do you have any encouraging words for readers out there who might be discouraged about the economy and funding for the arts in these hard times? I like to instill optimism in my readers as much as I can!

My broadly optimistic comment would be that artists are uniquely qualified to find creative solutions in troubled times. A perfect example would be your terrific blog, which is, it seems to me, a creative person’s creative solution to the always tricky issue of finding funding and other support as an artist. More specifically, I’d point to the fact that, though our budget is somewhat reduced from last year, the MCC is still giving direct funding to individual Massachusetts artists through our Artist Fellowships Program. We’re accepting applications from Massachusetts artists in the categories of Choreography, Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, and Poetry, through January 25, 2010. Check here for more info: http://www.massculturalcouncil.org/programs/artistfellows.html.

Dan, thanks so much for your time and for your great comments! I'm sure they will be most enlightening to a lot of my readers. And have a great holiday!

Have a great holiday break and stay tuned for more interviews coming up, as well as some new deadlines for residencies and grants. Best wishes, Mirabee

Grantwriting Resources, Professional Development Tips et al...

Well, after my post a few weeks back about people sending me grant proposals, I began thinking about what resources are out there to help artists write grants and learn more professional skills to further develop their careers. A couple grant writers also sent me the links to their sites and I will post those soon. I can't attest to how good these people are so if you hire them down the line and have either a great or a not-so-great experience, please let me know. Anyway, I thought that today I'd just take a minute to talk about hiring grant writers and also let you know about a couple resources that you might find helpful.

People have asked me how much consultants charge to help an artist write or edit her/his individual grant (not for non-profit organizations). Readers have also asked if I would do that for them in the future. I'm on the fence about doing that fee-for-service right now but it is possible in the future I will. I certainly will let you know if I do. In the meantime, here are just a couple things you should know:

* You should be paying the consultant per hour, NOT paying a percentage of the 'possible' grant award. That is considered unethical in the biz. What I mean is: if you are applying for a $20,000 grant and the consultant says his fee will be 10% of that award up front (which you may or may not get!), you are being scammed.
* People who do this for a living tell me they charge around $50 an hour on average, although some grant consultants do a sliding scale price and go as low as $20. Some people charge by the page to just edit your grant. It really varies.

I can't tell you if it's worth the money or not. All I can say is that having someone look over your proposal and application IS a good thing, if they know what they are doing. One way to get help, if you don't have any brilliant and experienced grant writing friends around or extra cash to pay a consultant is to check out your local arts council (and not just in the US but I know England and other countries have some great regional arts councils too) and see if they offer free or low-cost professional development workshops for artists. A great example of this is the Artists' Toolbox Program in Boston, sponsered by the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts, Inc. Other cities have such programs too. In Seattle, Washington, Artist Trust offers lots of great professional development programs.

There are also individuals who teach workshops and classes on grant writing, etc. Gigi Rosenberg gives regional (in Oregon) and National workshops for artists and writers. You can find her at: http://www.gigirosenberg.com. I met Gigi recently when she interviewed me for her book on grantwriting, due out from Random House in 2011 and although I have never taken a workshop from her, I have a feeling she is the real deal and that you would learn a lot.

Also, visual artists should really check out GYST (Get Your S**T Together), an artist-run site for artists. They offer software, professional development workshops and other services. They also have a blog so check them out.

Oh, I've also seen free grant-writing workshops at local libraries so check those out too. Many of them offer these kinds of classes or one-day intensives so drag yourself down to the library, check out a book or two and ask if they offer any professional development programs for artists. If they don't, suggest it. If you build it, they will come.

That's all the ranting and raving for today. I'm going to also post something right after this---an event coming up in Boston for artists. And coming soon....interviews! I'm lining them up---the response has been fantastic. A nice variety of peeps coming your way.

Your Faithful Servant,
Mirabee

FOUNDATION CENTER CLASSES FOR GRANT-SEEKERS COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU!

Thank you Women Arts.org for this late-breaking news:

(ALL) Foundation Center Classes for Grant-Seekers: In honor of Funding for the Arts Month (October), the Foundation Center will host free events and classes in Atlanta, GA, Cleveland, OH, New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA, to help artists and non-profit arts organizations become better grant-seekers and increase their funding. See website for details and exact locations. http://foundationcenter.org/marketplace/promotions/emailpromo/arts
_month_08312009_cats.html. Class Dates: October 5, 2009 (Atlanta), October 7, 2009 (Cleveland), October 14, 2009 (New York), October 29, 2009 (San Francisco).

A PRIMER ON GRANTS & RESIDENCIES

Hi everyone. So today, Artsake, a great arts blog sponsored by the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC), posted a shortened version of an older post of mine, "Finding Money for Your Dreams," The condensed version, "A Primer on Grants and Residencies," can be found here: Artsake. Although the blog's focus is on Massachusetts I find it very useful for anyone in the arts. There are up-to-date opportunities for everyone, not just Mass artists.

What Artsake says about itself on their blog:
ArtSake is a place to dig into the creative, innovative work of Massachusetts artists. It’s hosted by the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC), the state’s arts agency. We chose the name ArtSake because support for the arts is often framed in terms of its additional benefits: to education, to the economy, to communities. But we wanted to carve out a space where we celebrated art and art-making for its inherent merits, for its own sake. We’ll use this space to celebrate our state’s innovative and creative minds, highlight new projects, and feature ideas and content straight from the artists. Above all, we hope to encourage readers to participate in the advancement of Massachusetts arts - especially their own.

I hope you check out my post on Artsake and see what other artists are doing in Massachusetts...talk to you later, Mira

RECOMMENDATION LETTERS

Q: Dear Mira,

I enjoyed meeting you at the TransCultural Exchange conference in Boston—your talk was so informative. I'd like to invite you to my studio in New York whenever you are in town. I'm in the process of researching residencies (there's a lot out there). I wonder how you handle the letters of recommendation that are requested by residencies, grant organizations, etc.. Do you stockpile these letters in your files and use as needed or do you ask your contact people for a letter each time the requests come up?(I hate asking-it feel like begging.) It's especially tricky when the organization wants the letter sent directly from the recommender.

A: Thanks for writing and great to hear from you. I'm glad you liked the talk I gave. As for recommendation letters, unfortunately, you need to contact those people in advance, send them a brief description of what you are planning on doing, a little info on the place, and so on. The letter should be specific to what you are asking for. I know. It's a pain in the butt and who likes to bother anyone? But it's just part of the deal and remember that those people whom you are asking have also been the ones who asked in the past. For some things you can use a standard letter from someone but not that often. An example of this is when someone is leaving an MFA program and they create a professional file in the career office. When that former student applies for a teaching job, the office just sends out the student's file which contains their CV, other related materials and general letters regarding his/her teaching experience.
A couple hints: ask WAY in advance (no one likes to get asked at the last minute), ask someone who knows you and your work well, and make sure you send a nice thank you email or card. Those thank you's go a long way! Hope that helps!
Mira

FINDING MONEY FOR YOUR DREAMS

***Note to all: This is a long article, about 10 pages single-spaced. Just warning you! It is taken from my talk on grants that I did this past weekend at the Transcultural Exchange (TCE) Conference for Opportunities in the Arts. I hope some of you find it useful. I don't usually write many personal things but this one contains part of my story. Oh, and one more thing...special thanks to Erin Williams, Executive Officer of the Worcester Cultural Coalition in Massachusetts for such an amazing introduction and thanks also to Mary Sherman, Director of TCE, for her amazing spirit and relentless support of the arts.

FINDING MONEY FOR YOUR DREAMS

Some of my old friends call me “The Grant Queen.” Recently, a new friend asked me why. I said that it all started when I was hit by an eighteen-wheel tractor-trailer almost ten years ago on the New York Thruway. I woke up the next morning with an MTBI, a mild traumatic brain injury, and a lawsuit that didn’t settle for five years. I tried to go back to teaching, but found I’d get lost mid-sentence or develop a migraine from the sound of the heater or someone cracking their gum in the room. I couldn’t read any of the articles or stories I assigned to students because I’d get stuck after one or two paragraphs and have to begin all over again. Most of the time, I couldn’t follow my own train of thought for more than a few minutes. I gave up trying to teach art, lost my freelance writing jobs, maxed out my credit cards, and could no longer afford health insurance. I had to do something to pay my bills. Even though it took me three hours to write a cover letter back then, I applied for every kind of grant under the sun. I surfed the Internet for emergency funding and asked every friend I knew if they had heard of grants for people in my situation. I googled keywords like, “money for women” or “emergency grants for writers,” “artists fellowships” and so on. I thought about what I wanted to ask for and I typed in the words.
I ended up getting emergency funding from Pen-American, Change Inc., the Author’s League (which gives no interest loans), the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the Barbara Deming Money for Women Fund and other places. I also applied for visual arts grants and received $20,000 from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and $5000 from the Gottlieb Foundation, as well as several smaller art grants. I kept applying to anything that seemed applicable to my situation. Every ‘yes’ I got in the mail spurred me on to apply for more. Every ‘no’ just made me say, hell with you people, I’m on a roll! In 2004, several months before my lawsuit settled out of court, I applied for A Room of Her Own Foundation's (AROHO’s) Gift of Freedom Award, a $50,000 grant for creative nonfiction writing. By then, I could write again, although with limited endurance, for I’ve never been able to fully recover. I heard about the grant the week before it was due. I canceled my life for seven days and focused on that application (it’s a huge one). I didn’t get it—it went to another writer, named Merideth Hall, but I found out I was a finalist. A finalist for a $50,000 grant? Are you kidding? I didn’t even expect to get in the final round. I had no book out there yet, only a handful of literary journal publications. Then I found out that even the winner hadn’t published a book before. In fact, I had more journal publications than she did. I thought at the time—if I could be a finalist for something this big, couldn’t I win someday too?
When I was asked to speak at this conference on how to find money for your dreams, I realized, after thinking about it for a while, that I really became a Grant Queen long before my car accident. I was a twenty-something artist living in Chicago in the mid-1980s, trying to juggle a painting career, teach, maintain a relationship, and not give up the freedom I enjoyed by creating my own schedule. I had figured out a way to organize my work life so I could travel or paint for several uninterrupted weeks at a time.
I didn’t receive my first real grant for writing or visual art but for teaching. I worked for a place called Artists Book Works, a struggling artists’ book/letterpress printing studio in Chicago, which, combined with a papermaking studio, eventually became the Columbia College Center for Paper and Book Arts. While working there part-time I wrote a grant to create an interdisciplinary book arts program in the Chicago Public Schools. I thought—wow! I can create a job for myself and get money for it? My boss, and wonderful mentor, a woman named Barbara Metz, helped me write the grant and in a few months I was the visiting artist at a vibrant and progressive elementary school on Chicago’s North Side. I got paid well, had fun and began to see the possibilities of finding funding for my own artistic projects, not just educational ones.
During the time I worked for ABW, I managed ABW’s slide registry of book artists and helped manage the place. Suddenly I was on the other side of the table, looking over slide sheets from strangers and offering input as to which ones were appropriate for shows, residencies, exhibits and our archives. I was the slush pile gal. I got to help separate the sheep from the goats at the tender age of twenty-four. The experience had a profound effect. If, after spending an entire day shuffling through slides, I came across a set that was overexposed or out of focus, or the person wrote an undated, misspelled and awkwardly written cover letter without a SASE, I dumped it in the NO pile. I took no prisoners. I also saw how true professionals projected themselves in image and print. They wrote succinct, articulate and kind letters. Concise and well-written artist statements. Their slides were impeccable and clean. They never pressured us to get back to them the next day, or any time soon. And most importantly, they never said things like, “My grandma really likes my art,” or “I think you’ll like my totally awesome books. Everyone does.”
While working for ABW, I began applying to artists’ residencies. Another older woman artist I knew had been to one, and encouraged me to apply. This woman, and others, like my mentor Barbara, who were all twenty years or so older than me, kicked my butt. One older friend said to me once, “Well, if you never ask, you won’t get a damn thing.” Opportunities didn’t come to her—she came to them. She believed in herself and believed that her work was worthy of support. She, and my other older women mentors, were always entering shows, putting themselves out there, without giving a damn whether they might be accepted or not. They just did it. Before they even heard back from one place, they already had twenty other slide sheets out in the mail. These were our first wave feminist artists and I was on the receiving end of their wisdom and their will to thrive and succeed. They had had families, hardship, illness—all that stuff that makes us human as well as very, very tired. But these women were not whiners; they just forged ahead and cleared the path for newbies like me.
At that time, when I was in my mid-twenties, I got into my first residency, in printmaking, at a place called Centrum in Port Townsend, WA and soon after that I got accepted to one called Ragdale, just outside of Chicago. Around that time, I applied for a Fulbright to study fresco painting in Italy and didn’t get it. I didn’t do all the things I since have learned you should do when applying for a Fulbright, i.e. get invitation letters from the host country’s institutions where you want to study if they require them, ask the people you need recommendation letters from way in advance and so on. I was new to all this and didn’t know. But still, I had about fifteen other things in the post by then and my learning curve grew exponentially. I wanted to apply for an Illinois Arts Council grant but soon realized that I wasn’t professionally ready to apply for their larger grants for mid-career artists. I had had only one one-person show, the rest were group exhibitions. That told me that I was “emerging” but not mid-career. Nevertheless, I felt qualified to apply for an IAC professional development grant. I received about $1500 and used the money to hire a professional photographer to shoot high quality prints and slides of my work so I could use those for galleries, other grants and residencies, thereby cultivating more work and shows, more time to do my painting and more grants. This was obviously way before the Internet, so I had to do all my grant research at a foundation center in Chicago, and at the public library and of course, through word of mouth. I also got on mailing lists of arts organizations that published upcoming deadlines; I joined CAA (College Art Association) and any magazine or organization that offered information on opportunities for artists. Eventually, when I began writing I took out subscriptions to Poets & Writers Magazine and the The Writers’ Chronicle. I did get a Fulbright by the way. I just got it ten years later. And by that time I knew a lot more about how to write a kick-ass application.

MYTHS and MISCONCEPTIONS
What irks me now sometimes is that when I tell certain friends or colleagues to apply for a grant or some great opportunity, they often let out a big sigh and say things like: “Oh, you really have to know someone to get one of those.” Or—“My work’s just not good enough.” Or, “I teach at a university. I don’t feel right about asking for anything.” Or this one—“What if I get rejected?” And then, my favorite—“I don’t know how to use the Internet. I don’t even use “the email.””
Well, the truth is—these are all myths, fallacies and poor excuses. There is a method to this madness. If you are willing to take a little time and have a bit of courage, you will be able to reap the fruits of your labor. Before we get started with the nuts and bolts of finding money for your dreams, here are a couple things I think get in the way of asking for what you want.
Myth One: You have to know someone in order to get a grant.
Truth: No. You just have to be good.
Maybe you still have to know the right person in Hollywood but not in the world of grants. You just have to be good, and then put yourself out there. You do have to have talent. Mediocrity usually doesn’t generate grants, hard work and talent does. I didn’t know a soul when I started applying for money and yet I still got funding. Sometimes I did, however, need a recommendation from someone in my field. Those contacts I had to cultivate. I often did that at residencies, workshops, as well as conferences such as the Transcultural Exchange Conference on Opportunities in the Arts. But a lot of grants don’t ask for recommendations. They go on your work and the way you write that application, which we will cover in a minute.
Myth Two: In order to get a grant, you have to be famous.
Truth: Most people who are awarded grants are on their way up, not already there.
Case in point. Look at me. Do you see my face on every billboard? Or take Meredith Hall, the woman who won that $50,000 award for nonfiction. She hadn’t yet published a book, had started writing in her late forties and yet, she won the award. Famous people don’t need grants, we do. Meredith calls asking for money to make one’s art The Audacious Act, especially when women do the asking. She was audacious to ask for $50,000, even though she had barely published. And she won!

Fear of Rejection
The fear of being rejected prevents a lot of people from applying for opportunities that are out there. This phobia reminds me of that old song we sang in the schoolyard when we were kids. I loved it because it was so gross. The song goes: Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go away and eat worms all day. And so on.
Do you really want to go hide somewhere and eat worms all day? Rejection—who cares? We are rejected every single day. People don’t like our hair, the color of our skin, our politics or our fashion sense. Fear is our worst enemy. Look how it drove our country into ruins during the last eight years. It’s time for all of us to be fearless—we really have nothing to lose. Remember, judges are only human and the judging process is subjective. The person who wins this year’s arts council grant might not win next year because there are different people on the panel. What’s the worst that can happen if you just apply for something? Okay. You don’t get the award. Does that mean you truly suck and should just quit making art right now? Or are you more afraid that you might get the award and then have to deal with the responsibility of the hard work that follows, maybe even the success that follows the completion of the work.
The best remedy for fearing rejection is to not apply for one thing but to apply for five to ten things at the same time. Keep a log, date each entry, and label it, record when you hear back, send things out again right afterwards. If you keep those applications alive, tweaking them here and there to suit a particular grant or residency, those applications just become one of a host of many. In time, you will get used to the ebb and flow of yays and nays. The Audacious Act of asking for money will become as easy as taking a breath or turning on your computer, opening up a tube of paint or sitting down at the piano to practice your scales. Something natural that is part of the process of creating.
Once I asked my friend Jack, a professional singer, how in the world he had the guts to sing all the solos he did in front of so many people. “Aren’t you ever afraid they won’t like you?” I asked. He replied, “It’s just singing. They’re just people.” Then, he said, “When I am on stage about to sing, I imagine everyone sitting there petting a cat and drinking a cup of tea.” He added, “Okay, so sometimes I also imagine them naked.” So the next time you are gripped with terror at actually sending out an application for a writing or art grant or something else, try to imagine the person at the other end, sitting in by the fire, their hair kind of messy, a cup of tea in their hand, and a big yellow cat purring in their lap. You can imagine them naked or not. These are real people. I know many editors and directors of foundations now and I can tell you that most of them are very kind, they work long hours, often for little money and they really and truly want to support your projects.

Letting go of ego.
The most important thing to remember, when you are starting out writing grants—keep you mind on your work, not your ego. Once again, I think of music—I have been an amateur musician and singer for years and always loved what a conductor said to our choral group once, following an outburst of bickering amongst the sopranos: Ladies, serve the music, not yourself. This might sound counter-intuitive when talking about grants, etc.—shouldn’t you be serving yourself? Isn’t that what it’s all about? You worked hard—you deserve a break, and so on. But in my opinion, thinking that you deserve it might not the greatest thing to focus on. Thinking you don’t deserve it is just as unfortunate a mental and social construct. Both concepts are about feeding the ego, not the act of creation itself. The more you ask for and do in the world for the work, the greater your ability is to create. Your work will be here long after you.
I don’t believe in deserving something but believe in what Meredith Hall calls Audacious Act—asking for what you needed. The act of asking creates the possibility to ask again, to encourage others to ask, to say to yourself I need money to work, to create, to make art because I have a voice that has something to say. I don’t believe in entitlement. Entitlement is a deep and bottomless well. Entitlement makes us lusty consumers, not great artists or greater human beings. I would frame it differently—keep the focus on the art because it’s not about you. Serve the music not your ego. Serve the writing and the art, not the writer or the artist.
One more thing about what stops us from writing grants—I have been taking surveys for over a year now from a wide range of people in the arts, all ages, genres, stages in their careers. Across the board, the main reason people tell me why they don’t apply for grants and other opportunities is that it takes away from the time they need for their work. That’s a very valid point—one I struggle with myself. If you don’t apply for anything, it is hard to evolve as an artist, fund that perfect residency, build your CV. Next to impossible, actually. Yet you need to work as hard as you can on your art. I think the answer lies in finding a balance between those two things, and everyone has to find the right place for him or herself. For me, I tend to work for several months, then, during a time when I know a lot of applications are due, say, around mid-September or mid May, I blast several applications and/or literary journal submissions out in the mail. I used to apply for things or enter contests every two months or so but now I only do that after I’ve created a larger volume of work. Then I take a week off from my own work and focus solely on applications. And if, during the year, something really important suddenly pops up, I stop everything and apply for it. That’s what happened with the $50,000 AROHO grant. The other thing I do to ease the pain of application writing is I keep a good cover letter template and a good application template in my computer, then customize those things to fit specific grants, contests, etc.

The Nuts and Bolts of Grantwriting
Now that we’ve gotten some of those myths and misconceptions out of the way, here are some suggestions to get you started on finding funding.
1. Work really, really hard at what you do.
The first rule is obvious: write, write and write or paint, paint and paint. Or whatever you do, do it early and often. You can’t get a grant or a residency or fellowship if you have nothing to show. You need to have a body of work. If you’ve never published a book before, start thinking in terms of a book, not separate pieces. A book will change your life, a published story won’t. Think of a collection or essays, or a novel, or a book of short stories or poems. Show up at the desk and write. If you are an artist, show up at your studio and work toward that one-person show. Work hard. You know that. That’s the first step.
2. Get your work out there.
For those of you just starting out in your career, or those of you returning to your art after a long period, when you are ready, send your work out—send your writing out to be published, or your slides or jpgs out for shows, films to festivals, whatever it is you do. You will not get a grant or fellowship if you cannot show that your work is and has been in the public eye. You need a track record. This comes before all applications. Grant givers want to know that art is your serious passion, not just a hobby.
3. Do your homework.
This is extremely important. You need to learn how to look for opportunities and discern which ones are right for you. Many rejections from grants and other opportunities are actually the result of an artist or writer not choosing the right place for her work, or ignoring the small print that says “must have published at least three poems in a literary magazine,” or “award is for only for artists under thirty-five who have not had a one-person show.” Know your market—If you’ve never published a story before or have had a one-person show, you are not going to apply for a Guggenheim or an NEA. Read the eligibility requirements. Are you an emerging artist or mid-career? You can be in your fifties, but still be considered emerging, depending on how many shows you have had or other projects out in the world.
Know what kind of grant you want and investigate what is out there. Here are just a few kinds of grants available to you, depending where you are in your career: Grants for special projects, need-based emergency grants, career fellowships, short-term fellowships, travel and study grants, research grants, residency fellowships, emerging artist grants, distinguished artist grants, collaborative grants, production grants to complete a work in progress, and more. By the way, a really good book on grants is listed on my sidebar toward the bottom on the right. It’s called Guide to Getting Arts Grants by Ellen Liberatori. The book contains excellent advice on everything from researching the right grant for you to how to write a personal statement or application essay.
As far as doing your homework, go online and visit different search engines to learn more about opportunities. Visit my blog, Mira’s List, to start with. There, you will find links to search engines, deadlines for grants, fellowships and residencies and more. Nowadays, the best sources are all online. If you are an artist, go to the CAA website and NYFA, if you are a writer, visit the Pen-American site and Poets & Writers. Michigan State University has a great grant database for all the arts. Visit your state Arts Council site. There are many, many sites out there—there are university search engines, such as the great one at MSU, blogs and blog carnivals to subscribe to, email alerts for deadlines, etc. And there is the fine art of googling. When looking for grants—technology is your friend.
Remember: this is a process. You don’t have to do it all in one day. Give yourself a half hour here, a half hour there. If you can’t find what you are looking for on my blog or other sites, type specific words into your search engine …for instance, "Grants for Women Artists 2009." Or Money for Gay Jewish Poets. Artist Residencies. Printmaking Fellowships. Fiction grants. You get the picture. Also, don’t discount using the phrase “small business grants,” especially if you are searching for local funding. I got an interest free car loan that way once. Here’s another thing to try: look up artists you like, google them and see if anything pops up about what grants they’ve gotten. Read their bios, the foundations they thank. When you get the name of the organization that gave them money, go to that site. See what they offer to people at your career level. See if they have a place to click on for “links” or “resources” and check those sites out too. Sometimes you have to sniff around a bit.
4. Put yourself out there.
No one is going to know about you if you stay at home. Cultivate professional relationships by attending conferences, residencies, workshops, retreats, etc. Check out blogs and list serves and grant forums on Yahoo and Google, if that sort of thing appeals to you. Tweet on twitter if you are into tweeting; connect with other artists on Facebook and other social networking sites like LinkedIn or artbistro.com. Go to readings and events that support people in the arts. Be a recluse when you do your work but come out of the barn from time to time to build your community.
5. Keep Track of Everything
I keep a log of submissions to journals, publishers and exhibits as well as grants and residencies. I list when I completed a work, the title, when I sent it out and to whom. I also list the reply date, if there was a personal response, if I had to query about anything. This way, I know to whom I sent what to and when, in case I forget or I just want to track my progress. It also gives me a sense of accomplishment to see how many things I’m actually sending out into the world.
6. Have your ammunition ready
I’m sure you know this, but just in case you need reminding: before you start applying for grants, you should have these things at your fingertips: a good, no, a GREAT artist statement. I know. This is always a tough one and hard to write. Keep it to around 250 words. Talk about your artistic approach, who your influences were, what your accomplishments have been. Your personal vision. If you need helping writing this, go to a workshop offered in your community or look for help online at various forums and get feedback from a more established artist or writer. Okay. You usually need a good bio (once again, short and sweet) and/or a full CV, reviews if you have them, business cards and brochures if that is appropriate to what you are applying for. You often will need recommendation letters from professionals in your field, so ask for these way in advance, not at the last minute. And last but not least, you need a good solid work sample for each application. Have you revised those twenty-five pages a million times so they are absolutely polished? Have you double-checked to see if your jpegs or slides are overexposed? Is the sound quality on that MP3 up to snuff? Strive for perfection. Your work sample should be the best example you have of what you do. Dazzle the committee that opens up your application.

Start The Process
If you’ve never applied for a grant before then I suggest a good way to begin is to start local but dream global. Try your hand at a local arts council grant first, a smaller one for professional development, not one of the larger $5,000-7,000 ones. Maybe ask for enough money to attend a writing conference like AWP (Associated Writers and Writing Programs) or the next TCE or CAA conference down the road. Or ask for money to hire a photographer to shoot your work like I did, or to travel to an artist residency in another state. Most local starter grants are between $500-1000. That will buy you a plane ticket and then some.
Okay. Let’s say you are a painter who has been in several group shows. You need the time and space to focus on developing a body of work for a one-person show. You would love to land a residency in Japan, since your work right now is highly influenced by a strange juxtaposition of Japanese manga (comic book art) and ancient Zen scroll paintings. You find out about a great residency at an art colony outside of Tokyo. You take the chance and apply for a three-month residency and you get it. Great! But now what? The foundation that runs the residency offers you an apartment with an adjoining studio, rent-free. You will also have the opportunity while you’re there to give a talk on your work and be part of a huge show at a gallery in Tokyo. All great things for your career. You’ve taken a leave from your summer teaching gig so you can go to Japan, but now what? Can you really afford it? You do the math. You need to buy a plane ticket, keep up with your bills at home, and save a little money for the fall. Even if you got a sub-letter for your flat, you still can’t do it without extra money. You’re going to have to find a grant to fund your trip to Japan. But how much should you ask for? First you come up with a budget. How much do you need to pay your bills? How much does a plane ticket to Japan cost? What does one week of groceries cost times twelve? And so on. After careful consideration you decide that you need $12,000 for the summer to live in Japan.
The next step is finding the grant to serve that goal. You first go to a website such as Trans Artists and click on “related subjects” and go down the list to where it says, “funding.” You try their suggestions, the sites they say to go to. You go to my blog, Mira’s List, and find the links on the sidebar that direct you to finding money for travel, such as the Kansas City Artists Coalition which sponsors the Lighton International Artists Exchange Program that gives up to $5,000 grants for artists to travel, provided they get involved in the arts community where they are traveling to. Okay, you also visit other sites, like artheals.org, artisttrust.org, other sites listed on my sidebar. You google Travel Grants for Artists, Japan arts grants, etc. You check your state arts council and other arts foundations in your home state. Some might offer travel and study grants, like the Jerome Foundation in Minnesota. Alright, let’s say that you find a fantastic grant from some Asian cultural organization, such as the Asian Cultural Council in New York, that offers up to $15,000 for travel grants (I don’t know if the ACC in NY does this…I’m speculating here). $15,000—great! Do you ask for that much? No. Ask for what you need. You don’t really need more than $12,000. They can tell when you are stretching the truth, believe me. Plus, it’s greedy. Here’s an important tip—when applying for larger grants like this, let the foundation know that you are trying to find funding from other sources, but not for the exact same thing. You can apply to one organization for travel funding and another only for materials and certain expenses. Foundations don’t want to be your only gravy train. They are not banks, but rather, supporters of the arts. You have a better chance getting a larger grant if you show resourcefulness on your application.

Here are some other tips to help you along:
Use tasty language when applying for grants. The same rules apply for grants as they do for good writing. The language in grants must be focused, specific, and concise. Be really clear about what you want. Use direct verbs and sentences. Don’t be redundant or vague. Go for the particular, stay away from generalized sentiments. With applications, the devil IS in the details. You need a good hook just like you need one with a great short story. Avoid describing your work as “interesting,” and all those other words we are told to avoid in Writing 101. Be succinct but eloquent. Let them know why your work stands out from the others. What you specifically will do with the money. Where else you are looking for funding. Why this is important at this time in your career. How it will affect your work in the long run. How will it affect your community, the art world at large, if that is important in the application? Remember, serve the project, not yourself. This is about the art, not you. And this is key: pay attention to the order in which a funder asks for information. Follow the rules and just write a great application. If they ask for a five-page essay explaining why you think you should get this grant, use all five pages, unless you find that you are repeating yourself. This is your opportunity to shine, to stun the committee with your brilliant writing, and a chance to reaffirm to yourself where you are now and where you want to be a year or so from now. If you have trouble writing, don’t be afraid to ask for help, from a seasoned mentor, at a grant writing workshop, or online forum. And, as I mentioned earlier, if you are applying to several places at once for the same thing, you can use that application as a template for other grants, just tweaking the text here and there to fit. There is no need to re-invent the wheel each and every time.
The lesson is clear—be direct about what you want, and have the track record, the planned out budget and the brilliant work to back it all up. There are some great artists and writers out there who fail time after time when it comes to grants primarily because they send in poorly written, vague requests. Treat your grant like a great piece of writing. Check your spelling and grammar as you would anything you send out. Make sure you’ve included everything they ask for. If you send a cover letter, make it warm, professional, short and sweet. The person reading it probably read a thousand other grant applications that week, she’s got to get home to feed her cat (remember, she has a cat and drinks tea, perhaps naked, perhaps not), and her baby needs to be fed, she’s being audited by the IRS, and she’s had the week from hell. Keep it short and don’t be whiney or sound desperate, even if you are applying for emergency funding following some financial or medical disaster. Put a stamp on the envelope, make sure you include your own SASE and send it in the mail ON TIME. After that, forget about it. Send out another the next day and the next. Then get back to work, because that’s why you’re here in the first place.
The Ripple Effect
There’s a ripple effect with this application process—Grants beget grants and so do residencies, fellowships and any kind of award. There is something about winning a grant or an award—somehow it tends to breed other ones. When I was awarded a Fulbright in anthropology in 1997 to live with reindeer herders above the Arctic Circle in Northern Norway the money started to flow after that. It’s important to keep the momentum going. When people and foundations see your other awards and residencies listed on your resume, they’ll assume you have resourcefulness, passion and drive. They will all want to invite you to their party. Assuming your work is good, and you have a track record of getting it out there.
The ripple effect also affects others—Honor those who have helped you—send thank you cards, encourage others to apply for grants and fellowships. Remember—You don’t deserve a grant, your work does. If you score a month long residency at Yaddo or somewhere else, you most likely will produce more than you would have in several months. Then you apply to another place or you send that essay you’ve been sitting on for two years because you read it at a little reading one night at Ragdale or the Millay Colony and people loved it and one of those people said, Oh, try this literary journal, they’re looking for some new work. And you send that essay out and it gets rejected but the editor really likes your style and says send something else in a few months and you do and it gets in and lo and behold, that journal recommends it for a Pushcart Prize. And slowly you build up your publishing resume and sooner or later you are eligible to apply for an NEA because you’ve got at least five great publications out there.
It is really crucial that you don’t throw in the towel, even if you have a year of rejections. Or two years. Some of the greatest artists were rejected dozens of time before they got their first grant. I now refer you back to the worm eating section of my talk. If you feel compelled to wallow in self-pity by not getting that Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant for five years in a row, start humming the worm song to yourself and use some good old self-deprecatory humor to get back on track.
For me, the key to committing the Audacious Act of asking for money with grace and guts is to take the path of nonattachment. Don’t expect anything, but ask for it all. Acceptance isn’t resignation; it’s simply not being attached to the outcome. Don’t put stones in your pockets and walk into the river if you don’t get a Guggenheim or Bunting Fellowship this year or the next. Go to the river and toss a stone in instead. See the ripple effect of your own making. Grants beget grants beget residencies beget others being inspired who apply for grants which then, in turn, begets change and courage and brings forth stories and art that do not destroy but heal. I’ve always loved that old Graham Nash quote: “Make sure that the thing you do keeps us alive.” We need your stories and poems; we need your paintings, your beautiful prints and songs and films to keep us going. You need money, time and a place to create. So toss a pebble in the stream, turn on your computer, open that studio door or violin case and begin.