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Writers, literary orgs among latest OzCo grant recipients

Thirty-four writers and literary organisations have been awarded a total of $780,337 in the Australia Council’s first grant round for 2018.

Nineteen writers and groups received arts projects funding, worth up to $50,000. The recipients are:

  • Vanessa Berry ($41,835)
  • Jesse Blackadder ($15,000)
  • Claire G Coleman ($21,500)
  • Robert (Bob) Connolly ($25,000)
  • Laura Elvery ($35,614)
  • Michael Farrell ($40,000)
  • Adam Ford ($10,800)
  • Dan Giovannoni ($17,500)
  • Kate Gordon ($13,000)
  • Gusher ($11,719)
  • Rebecca Harkins-Cross ($35,240)
  • Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones ($12,653)
  • Hella Ibrahim ($24,125)
  • Tara June Winch ($11,000)
  • Kate Middleton ($40,000)
  • Suneeta Peres da Costa ($21,000)
  • Edwina Preston ($15,000)
  • Mirandi Riwoe ($38,500)
  • Astrid Edwards, The Garret Podcast ($16,150).

Seven writing organisations received arts projects funding. The recipients are:

  • Australian Poetry Limited ($40,000)
  • Kill Your Darlings ($36,000)
  • Mascara Literary Review ($42,580)
  • Playlab ($22,640)
  • Queensland Poetry Festival ($30,000)
  • Story Box Library ($47,500)
  • Southerly Magazine ($43,800).

The recipients of development grants for individuals and groups in the literature category were:

  • Tristan Bancks ($10,000)
  • Rebecca Giggs ($10,000)
  • Walter Kadiki ($12,400)
  • Shaun Prescott ($10,917)
  • Scale Free Network ($9019)
  • Eve Tonelli ($9720)
  • Emma Viskic ($5075)
  • Damon Young ($5050).

First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) also received an Arts Projects grant of $98,000 from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander funding panel. FNAWN announced on Twitter that the grant would help fund the third national First Nations writers’ workshop called ‘Sovereign People, Sovereign Stories’, to be held in Canberra in August.

Recipients respond

First-time recipient Hella Ibrahim, editor of online publication Djed Press, said the project funding will primarily go towards paying the publication’s diverse writers, and mentoring its featured authors to make decisions ‘that would be beneficial for their practice’.

The funds will also enable the online publication, which exclusively publishes works by people of colour, to ‘[extend] more paid editorial opportunities to editors of colour,’ said Ibrahim. ‘Our aim is to offer an editorial development and training opportunity to increase the number of editors of colour working in the industry.’

A small part of the funding will also go towards a live event in Melbourne where Djed Press’ featured authors can perform their work.

Mascara Literary Review editor Michelle Cahill expressed her appreciation for the Australia Council funding, which, ‘for the first time in a decade’, will allow the publication’s editors to be paid.

‘The grant will enable us to increase our fees to writers and reviewers, to upskill emerging editors, harvest content for digital preservation, [and] strengthen our community-based networks with locally progressive organisations such as Varuna, WestWords, Sweatshop, and the Victorian Writers Centre, as well as internationally,’ said Cahill.

For Kill Your Darlings, funding from the Australia Council will help the publication maintain its regular publishing program and launch complementary initiatives. ‘KYD has always applied for Australia Council funding to go towards contributor payments in the magazine, where we aim to improve the remuneration for our writers each year as well as the reach of our readership,’ said editor-in-chief and publishing director Rebecca Starford.

She added, ‘This means, along with our regular yearly publishing program of commentary, essays, interviews, reviews and new Australian fiction, we can launch other, complementary initiatives, including the New Critics Award, the Unpublished Manuscript Prize, our State Week Showcase and the expansion of the KYD podcast. We also hope to run a prize for younger writers later in 2018.’

Other recipients and their funded projects include: author Claire G Coleman, who will work on a second novel; author Tara June Winch, who will work on her first foray into a new genre, a domestic psychological thriller set in France and the Swiss Alps; essayist Vanessa Berry, who will work on a new collection of creative nonfiction; children’s book author Tristan Bancks, who will develop his novel Two Wolves for other platforms; and Story Box Library, which will work on video storytelling projects for children involving Indigenous writers.

Literature grants comprised 11.5% of $6.8 million delivered in the latest round of core grants funding, which saw 222 projects by 133 individual artists, 30 groups, and 59 arts organisations supported. The Australia Council received a total of 1,336 applications in the latest round.

For the full list of recipients, click here.

 

Category: Local news