I’m so pleased to share that my application for Arts Funding to Communities (for the 2022-23 grant cycle) was accepted, and I was awarded a grant of $2500 for my Poetry & Prose Chapbook project. The grant funding will help me produce a complete edited manuscript, access the support of a professional mentor, conduct research and attend literary events, and pay for the costs of building & maintaining my author platform. I’m grateful for the support of the Columbia Basin Trust and Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance. The grant funding is administered through the West Kootenay Arts Council, and they have been gracious and helpful.
About the project: I am writing a hybrid poetry and prose chapbook with the working title, picking up fragments along the river. Some of the poems from the manuscript have already been published. Since submitting my application, I have continued working on the manuscript and generating ideas and material, and it is approaching the next stage of mentor review.
I’m also grateful for the knowledge and support I gained from the Selkirk College Creative Writing program. From 2020 through early 2022, I completed four creative writing courses at Selkirk College. In the final course, CRWT 201, a grant application was one of the assignments. My application was successful, and here we are!
After completing the courses at Selkirk College, I applied to The Writer’s Studio program at SFU and was accepted into the 2023 online program in the Fiction and Hybrid Forms group with Leanne Dunic. Through this program, I’ve gained a wonderful workshop group and expanded my artistic horizons. I’ve continued working on my chapbook project and other experimental writing and have grown as a writer through this experience. Watch for another of my short pieces, “Retirement Package”, which will be published in the upcoming “emerge 23: The Writer’s Studio Anthology” this month. The official launch date is October 11, 2023.
Gwen Higgins 