How to Get a Writing Grant in Canada
It takes money to produce art. As a writer, you may at some point apply for a grant to source said money. What you will find, as I did, is that there’s not an enormous amount out there about what your application should say. More specifically, there are almost no examples to be found of what a successful grant looks like, or an unsuccessful one for that matter. The process is shrouded in mystery, with many writers reluctant to share their applications and grant officers unable to provide feedback on individual cases due to time constraints.
So below, I’m going dive into the grant-getting process with total transparency regarding what that process has been like for me—no gatekeeping. Including examples of the applications I’ve submitted so you can see how those persnickety application questions might be answered. Of course, everyone’s application is going to be different depending on the artist and the project; still, I’ve always found it helpful to have at least something to go on.
Applying for a writing grant in Canada: the basics
First of all, there are a few different granting bodies in Canada that offer funds for writers. The largest is the Canada Council for the Arts, which is national and provides grant opportunities for literature, theatre, visual arts, and more. But there are also arts councils on the provincial and municipal levels.
There are also different types of grants that a writer can apply for. So if you wanted to travel to a conference or need help paying for a workshop, you can. Here, I’m going to focus on the main course, that is, grants for project creation. In other words, the grants that pay you to just write.
Ready, set, go!
The two granting bodies I’ve submitted successful and unsuccessful applications to are the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, through their Explore and Create and Literary Creation Projects grants, respectively.
Before you apply for either, you will need to create a profile in the application portals. Part of this process involves uploading a CV. This is because, in both cases, you need to qualify as a professional artist to be eligible for a grant. Sounds scary, but it’s not; to be considered a professional, you only need a few publishing credits to your name. Even better, the CCA has a funding option specifically for New and Early Career Artists. You can see the full criteria here. While you’re there, you should also take the time to find out what’s eligible for funding, to make sure your type of project and the associated costs are suitable.
Ok, application time. This is the fun part! The CCA and OAC each have a set of questions for you to answer. They are similar, but different. You can find the full list of questions here and here, but basically, you’ll need to provide a project summary, artist statement, and information about the timeline of your project and how you plan to get it done. The meat of the application will be the project description and artist statement, so I’ll focus on those below.
Note: If you plan to apply for both CCA and OAC, what I did was write my CCA app, and then adapt it to the one for OAC. You may choose to do it the other way around; either way, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel for every grant you apply for. Reuse, recycle, etc.
Writing a project summary for a CCA or OAC grant
To break down the project summary portion, I’m going to set out a formula you can use to write your own, and then I’ll show you the one I wrote to fund a short story collection. The first time I applied, my application was unsuccessful, so I revised the project summary, resubmitted it, and got the grant! I’ll show you both versions below.
Project Summary Formula
This is what, in my experience, a successful grant project summary should include:
The business, ie. basic information about what you want the funding for. In this bit, you’ll include the title, genre, and word count of your project, plus a sentence or two telling what it’s about.
What you plan to use the funding for. For example, to finish a first draft and revise the manuscript over a six-month period.
An amazing description of your project. Write this as if you’re speaking to a reader, sort of like the blurb on the back of a book.
Why it’s important. This part can include how it enters into conversation with the relevant literary landscape and you you’re the one to write it.
Project Summary Example: Unsuccessful Version
I am seeking funding to complete a short story collection. I’ve written nine stories for the collection so far, three of which have been published in The Puritan Magazine, The New Quarterly, and The Temz Review, and one of which made the longlist for PRISM’s Jacob Zilber Short Fiction Prize. The earliest story from the collection was written in 2017, so this project has already been in the works for four years. Support from this grant would mean I could devote the time to writing six new stories for the collection, and to further refine and revise the nine completed so far with an aim to producing a publishable manuscript of approximately 65,000 words by the end of 2022. My intention for the collection, once it is finished, is to hopefully publish it with one of the amazing small presses that are the champions of short fiction in Canada.
In my supporting material, I have included two unpublished stories from the collection: “Rock Baby,” which is about the cataclysmic revelation of growing up, complicated by the fact that it happens on a family camping trip; and “Lost and Found at the Museum for Broken Relationships,” which is about the end of a friendship. Other stories in the collection include “The Lonely VHS Club,” which explores grief and memory through one character’s obsession with outdated technology, and “The Location Cure,” which is about trying to cure an opiate addiction by playing survivor in the Canadian wilderness. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t go smoothly.)
The theme running through the collection is of the perils of disillusionment, and the fight for the desire to survive in the first place. Though on the surface this might seem like a dark premise, my stories have a sense of humour. Right now, it seems that everyone can agree on one thing, which is that we’re facing a bleak future of accelerating capitalism and climate change, and the question on all our minds is, why bother? Through my characters, I intend to explore the dubious definition of what it means to be good in an increasingly hostile world and how to find the kindness within that carries us through the bad times. Life is in the details, and by focusing on the specifics of my characters’ exterior and interior worlds, I hope to capture some of what it means to be alive in the here and now, and how to go on when all seems lost.
Ok. This version isn’t bad, but it doesn’t hit all the points of my formula, above. The CCA jury must have thought it had potential because it was Recommended but didn’t get funding. The OAC version was similar, and similarly unsuccessful.
When the next set of deadlines came around, I revised it and got both the OAC and CCA grants I applied for. Take a look:
Project Summary Example: Successful Version
I am seeking funding to complete a collection of short fiction. So far, completed stories from my proposed collection have been published in The Puritan Magazine, The New Quarterly, and The Temz Review, and placed in contests such as PRISM’s Jacob Zilber Short Fiction Prize. Various pieces have been workshopped with CanLit heavy-hitters Camilla Gibb, Shani Mootoo, Ayelet Tsabari, and Ted Staunton. Once published, my aim is that it will contribute to the short fiction landscape along with other contemporary Canadian short story writers such as Souvankham Thammavongsa, Tea Mutonji, and Alix Ohlin.
Support from this grant would mean I could devote the time to writing 3-4 new stories for the collection over the coming year, in addition to revising and polishing the ten completed stories to ready the collection for submission to one of the amazing small presses that champion short fiction in Canada.
In my supporting material, I have included three unpublished stories from the collection: “In The Pink”, about a young girl’s fall from grace in the eyes of her family’s matriarch; “Ectopia Cordis”, about the colliding impact of concurrent pandemics on two nurses in Sudbury. I chose these two stories because they show my efforts to use a range of forms, content, and perspective.
Other stories in the collection include “Rock Baby,” which is about the cataclysmic revelation of growing up, complicated by the fact that it happens on a family camping trip; “The Lonely VHS Club,” which explores grief and memory through one character’s obsession with outdated technology, and “The Location Cure,” which is about trying to cure an opiate addiction by playing survivor in the Canadian wilderness. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t go smoothly.)
In this collection, I explore themes of disillusionment and delight, power and powerlessness, and finding purpose when the future seems bleak. My characters struggle with opposing urges of self-destruction and the need to survive. They wonder, in an era of accelerating capitalism and climate change, where their duty lies. Facing temptation and hostility in a difficult world, they endeavour to choose kindness over causing more pain—for the most part. Life is in the details, and by focusing on the specifics of my characters’ exterior and interior worlds, I hope to capture some of what it means to be alive in the here and now.
First of all, I made the description of the collection more concise. Note that I also make a point of how my work will fit into the larger conversation, namedropping other short story authors up top. Additionally, my hunch is that this one scored where the other one didn’t because I infused it with more street cred. That is, I mentioned all the published authors who provided feedback and other support of the work, lending it greater legitimacy. I also asked for less money and revised the timeline—one of the reasons grants are rejected is that the jury didn’t think you could complete your project in the timeline given.
Writing an artist statement for a CCA or OAC grant
This one’s a little tougher to parse. I certainly struggled with it the first few times. Your statement will depend on who you are, your experience, and where this project falls in terms of your artistic development. There’s no real formula, but here is an example of the artist statement I used in the successful grant application above:
Short fiction is traditionally known as a fertile arena in which to experiment with new forms and ways of writing. It is also where I have learned to hone my craft and tell the stories I feel are missing from the world. Many of my stories are set in rural Ontario with characters who are dealing with poverty and mental health issues, subjects that are not widely represented in Canadian literature. It is this misfit experience that I try to depict in my work, and short stories are the best form I’ve found to express it. Short fiction sets a high standard for both the writer and the reader to deliver and absorb a moment via only the most essential words and images. Though somewhat overlooked in a commercial sense, short fiction is what makes waves; it sparks discussion, it’s memorable and accessible, and it’s a form I will continue exploring throughout my career. Completing a collection of short stories is only the beginning.
A few more tips
Keep an eye on the word count and come in under. Jurors have to read hundreds of these things in a short amount of time (If I recall correctly, they get about ten minutes to read the writing samples and ten to look over the application, that’s not a lot.) Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.
If your grant is recommended (but not funded), don’t just resubmit it! Revise it first. Go over it again, make it better, make it stronger, and make it shorter if possible before turning it in at the next deadline. Recommended means the jurors liked it, but it didn’t score high enough compared to the rest of the application pool and there wasn’t enough money to go around. Next time, there might be. On that note, when you resubmit, consider also revising your budget and asking for slightly less money. It worked for me.
Plan ahead and make sure you are busy the week you expect to hear back about the results. This will prevent you from checking your email every four minutes, or logging into the portal to see if there are results, or searching Twitter and other social media to see if other writers have gotten their results. Not that I have ever done this. Save yourself the agony and line up some plans so you’re distracted the week of. And keep in mind that you may hear back well after the posted results date.
Grants: the good, the bad, and the ugly
As a writer, it’s easy to get sidelined by all kinds of work that isn’t writing. Applying for grants, however, is worth it. Even if you don’t get the grant you applied for, you’ve accomplished something useful by thinking critically about what you’re working on, and producing a project summary and artist statement you can use for other things, like residency applications, query letters, and so on. You’ve also made a statement that you believe the work you’re doing is worth getting paid for. It is.
If you do get a grant, it’s going to feel amazing! And then slightly less so come tax time. Artist grants are taxable income. It sucks, but it is what it is. Put aside about a third of it just in case, so you don’t have to scramble when tax season rolls around.
As an aside, I’ll just add that when I brought up grants with my writing mentor, a published author who has served as an adjudicator in the past, he said that they’re mostly for books no one wants to read, anyway. I think he was preparing me for disappointment. When I ended up getting that first grant, one of my first thoughts was, Shit, no one’s going to want to read this. Jury’s still out on that one.
In conclusion…
Apply for a grant. Learn to love the process. Be proud of yourself and your work. And reach out if you have questions, if I have answers they are all yours.