Illuminated Grant Writing

This series of four workshops will examine how writers with projects for print, spoken word, or storytelling can make a strong literary arts grant application. From drafting a project description to balancing a budget, we will also discuss artistic risk, impact and cultural appropriation. Focus will be on funding programs at the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and an arts council program officer will join us to answer questions. This series is intended for Quebec-based writers at all stages of their practice: emerging, mid-career, or established. There will be tasks to complete between sessions and participants must have an original literary arts project in mind.

Access to MS Word or similar writing software will be necessary as well as a willingness to share work, and give and receive feedback in a workshop setting.

Tawhida Tanya Evanson is a poet, author, multidisciplinary artist and producer. Her two poetry collections are Bothism (Ekstasis 2017) and Nouveau Griot (Frontenac 2018), and her debut novel Book of Wings (Véhicule 2021) won the 2022 New Contribution Literary Prize, was on the 2022 CBC Canads Reads Longlist, and was one of Quill & Quire’s 2021 Books of the Year. With a 25-year practice in spoken word, she has performed in over a dozen countries and released several studio albums and videopoems including the award-winning Almost Forgot my Bones. In 2013, she was Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and received the Golden Beret Award for her contribution to the genre. Director of the Banff Centre Spoken Word residency and VP of The Quebec Writers’ Federation, she is at work on an Afrofuturist film premiering in spring 2023 and a French translation of her novel. She moonlights as a whirling dervish.