Breaking Down the Ontario Arts Council’s Literary Creation Projects Grant

For writers in Ontario, this is your reminder that the deadline for Literary Creation Projects (Works for Publication) is just around the corner. This grant gives $12,000 to work on your novel, poetry collection, short stories, essays, comics, and more. 

The grant application has changed slightly from previous years, so this column will walk through the changes, as well as what you need to know to prepare an application.  

Before diving in, note the most important part—the deadline. This year, your grant must be submitted before September 5, 2024, at 1 p.m. ET.

*Note the time of the deadline. I’ve known writers who have missed the deadline because they didn’t note the time the grant was due. 

Application Questions

Most of your grant application time will be spent answering the application questions. These questions give jurors a sense of who you are as an artist, and allow them to visualize your project. 

The questions may seem daunting at first, but once you start writing, you’ll realize the word limits are actually quite short. Here, I’ll go through each question, and what I find important to include.  

*The first two questions previously used to be one question, but have been split up. 

1. Tell us about who you are as an artist, arts professional, group or organization.

I use this first question to talk about my writing trajectory. I include the following points in my answer:

• When I started writing, and big milestones in my career (awards, publications, etc.)
• The themes I’ve explored in my past work
• What interests me in the present
• My artistic goals

The question is a bit more philosophical than a literary CV. I only repeat what’s in my CV where relevant, such as when referring to themes of interest in a past collection. 

2. Describe the context in which you work. You may choose to include information about your environment, community, artistic influences and cultural identity or, as relevant, your connection to OAC priority groups and how they have had an impact on you or your organization’s art, career/development and decisions.

This second question is one that will look unfamiliar to those who have applied to the Literary Creation Projects grant in the past. When breaking the question down, however, I see that I’ve included all this information in past applications.

Talk about your literary community, whether this is events you go to, writing groups you’re part of, or other ways you stay connected to writers. When including your influences, try to stick to writers whose works are directly relevant to your project. 

This is also the space to talk about how your personal identity might connect to your project. For example, when applying for a project that engages with South Asian folklore, I mention my interest in the topic comes from being Pakistani and growing up with these stories. 

3. Describe how the artistic examples below relate to your project.

This is a fairly short question that asks you to connect your writing sample to your project description. The sample could be a direct excerpt, a thematic link, etc. I’ve rarely used the full 150 words for this answer. 

4. What are you planning to do, and what do you want to achieve with this project?

Out of these four questions, the project description is the most important one. Your answer helps jurors visualize your end product, something that has a huge influence on whether they will select your project for funding or not.  

There are many ways to answer this question. The structure I use for my answer allows jurors to walk through my project with me and get a sense of the full picture.  

My first line is a summary of the project that lists the working title, subgenre and main themes. For example, “Heliotropia is a collection of lyric poems that explores love in a time of social and political upheaval.”  

Following the first line, I mention my projected page, word, or poem/story count for the final project, and how much I have written to date. Providing this information gives a juror a sense of progress for your project. 

Depending on the nature of the project, you may provide a plot summary, or you may discuss overarching themes. Talk about the impact your project will have. What sets it apart from work that is being published right now?  

If your project involves research, talk about what your research process will look like. Will research involve site visits? Will it involve purchasing materials or subscriptions? How will you integrate your research into your writing? 

This question can be tricky to answer because your project will change as you write. Don’t let the inevitability of this weaken your writing in your answer—granting bodies understand that writing undergoes changes. 

Support Materials 

In addition to answering questions about your artistic practice and your proposed project, you need to submit a literary CV and an artistic sample. Here, I’m going to go over what these materials are used for, and what’s key to include. The Ontario Arts Council has a guide to support material as well.  

1. CV

The primary purpose of the literary CV is to determine your eligibility for the program. Your CV should clearly demonstrate that you are eligible for funding in the first place.  

Literary Creation Projects has a few eligibility criteria, including a published book, individual publications for which you were paid, membership in a professional writers’ organization, or a certain threshold of sales.

If your eligibility is determined by individual publications, you may wish to differentiate paid publications from unpaid ones by including a footnote or a ‘*.’

Unlike a job resume, your literary CV doesn’t need a list of your skills or your work history. You can structure your CV in any way. Whether you list awards first or publications doesn’t matter, but at minimum, you should include your publication, performance, and award history. 

2. Artistic Sample

The strength of your writing is going to be a biggest determining factor in your grant application. There are a number of strategies I’ve used in the past when determining my strongest writing for a given project. 

Most of the time, I select my polished pieces. I take care to include ones that have been published previously. Other times, I include writing that demonstrates the themes I want to explore. Although you can provide any writing sample, I find providing work related to the grant best showcases to the jurors my skill and ability to carry out the project.  

When pieces have been published previously, I include a footnote stating where and when they were published on the same page as the piece. 

We hope that this breakdown will help you prepare your grant application, and wish the best of luck to all writers who are diving into the granting pool this year!