Good News Day!
Just raving about some good news and how much I love community (actual people, not the show) and books <3
This week I got some good news!
I’ve received an Australia Council of the Arts Literature grant. My first two attempts didn’t work out. My agent had sent me an email, saying I should apply again. I was hesitant initially - I’d already been rejected twice. This would be my third attempt. Then I figured, I should do it and do it properly.
I’d just spent six months as an associate producer in a theatre company - I’d finally had a chance to see the Arts world from the business-side. As such, I had a better idea of what it took to convince someone to give you money.
I knew I needed two things: time and support.
Time to draft, edit, re-write, gather necessary content and review the project proposal.
Support: I needed help with the budget and editing. I also needed support letters
My publishing house immediately got on board. The CEO of Pantera Press helped me with the budget - my math skills are dismal, and I kept getting confused between “in-kind” and “income”. She also looked over my draft project proposal and offered feedback. The commissioning editor wrote an amazing support letter.
I’m a dreamer, so when it comes to grant writing, I often fall into the pit of writing in big, sweeping statements thinking that the judges will see my vision and be inspired!
Wrong. Vision is important, but details and specificity are what they’re really looking for.
So, I asked my boyfriend for help. With his critical eye for detail, he helped me edit the drafts of my project proposal, wherein I was able to map out necessary steps and clear outcomes. He asked me questions, drilling me to get to the point whenever I floated off into dreaming again.
When it came to support letters, I got a letter from my publishing house and a letter from my agent. However, I wasn’t just asking for funding to support the development of my book, I was also asking for funding to develop a workshop suite. So, I figured that the best way to show the value of my workshop design and facilitation skills was to ask for support letters from former participants. I received two letters; one, from a young person I mentored. Another letter from a participant in a workshop I ran at Logan Library. This felt good - most of the time, we think of Letters of Support as needing to come from “prominent people” or “professionals”, yet I think it’s just as important to show the value of your work through the people who have already been impacted by it.
I wanted to share this with you because grant-writing is a nightmare. And even now, as I have read back over this draft, I think: “paaaah, it’s just luck.” But it’s not - it’s work. More crucially, it’s TEAMwork. Even though you’re the recipient of the grant, it’s a myth to think that we do anything without a community of people around us. Even just having a conversation with a friend, where you “float your idea past them”, is a contribution and part of living in community.
So, I’m not interested in hoarding the knowledge - I wanted to outline this process so you see that it wasn’t just me, that you know that I had help.
Many of the artists I worked with complained that grant-writing was confusing and I completely agree! Even though I’d received producer training, I still melted at the sight of a budget. Still messed up calculations. Still struggled to write a project plan. It’s hard - as an artist, you’re not just focussed on your creative practise, you’ve got to cultivate hard business skills. If it wasn’t for support from people who have the skills that I struggle with, I don’t think I would be here.
So, ask for help. Weave a network for supporters. Reach out to people.
One of things I believe in is community. Yet, this world will tell you that you can do it on your own and prop up all these individuals as “evidence”. It’s a myth; smash it and stop feeling inadequate for not being able to “do it all.”
We’re meant to cooperate because we all have different skills. We’re meant to support each other, we’re meant to share knowledge.
Before I sign off this week, I want to share three books I read recently (it’s lockdown in Austria):
MEMOIR
The Men We Reaped by Jessmyn Ward
Weaving together the life and death of five young black men know by Jessmyn Ward, as she grapples with the legacies of love, loss, intergenerational and racism in rural Mississippi.
Two things stood out to me: one, it is simply a phenomenal example of craft. Two, I became completely immersed in Jessmyn’s world, every sense and emotion was engaged. I’ve never been to Mississippi but after her book, my brain could be convinced that I have.
NON-FICTION
How the Word was Passed: a Reckoning with the History of Slavery across America by Clint Smith.I first heard about this book - and Clint - through Brene Brown’s podcast. In the interview, he had such a calm, confident presence that it felt like listening to wisdom echoing up from a deep well.
In the book, Clint encounters multiple sites of memory - from Jefferson’s plantation to Blanford Cemetary (a confederate graveyard) to Goreé island, where many slaves left the Senegambia on a one-way trip to the American south. In exploring how slavery is remembered and understood, he compares and complicates what is remembered to what is known from historical records. On top of this, Clint Smith is a poet - so, his prose is lyrical, and rich with emotion and imagery.
One, Clint Smith is simply an incredible writer and story-teller and the questions he raises about memory are similar to one’s that I ask myself about Australia and it’s own struggle to reconcile with it’s history of colonisation. Two, it is meticulously researched, powerful, furious and compassionate. You cannot not be changed by it.
FICTION
You Exist Too Much by Zaina ArafatUGH, WOW. A young queer, Palestinian-American woman is our unnamed narrator, dragging us through her devastating and chaotic world of dealing with love addiction, intergenerational trauma and a huge identity crisis. Every time I thought the characters were becoming unbearably dislikable, something came up that changed the playing field again, and I felt for them -- I was pulled deeper and deeper into empathy for their terribleness, their chaos and their pain. Zaina’s writing is infused with empathy and humour; this works in ideal juxtaposition with how difficult the characters are and how emotionally complex the story is.
With the grant, I’ll be completing my book, designing a workshop suite and producing a short podcast (6-episodes). I’m super super excited to share the journey with you all over the next year and half. Please reach out if you want to discuss anything grant-related, I’d be more than happy to see how I can support you too.
Let me know if you enjoyed the book recommendations as well!
Love + Solidarity,
Lamisse xx
Lamisse!!! Huge congrats, and also, SO well articulated on some of the mysterious and important parts of grant app-ing <3