On Grants and Gifts

As I was writing about the gift of friendship earlier this morning, I was also thinking about the gift of time. I run a business most days each week — consulting to companies, creating (with my husband-partner) corporate annual reports and history books, brochures, branding strategies, brochures. It's great work to have, and we're grateful. (http://www.fusion-communications.com/)

But always the stories are stirring within. Always I'm stealing time, four in the morning, usually. Ten at night. Train trips and plane trips, vacations. I write because I'm happiest writing. Because that's what calm is for me.

A couple of years ago, I had the idea to write a book about the Schuylkill River that runs through my city, Philadelphia. I thought about the river as a she, as a woman who could never die and was forced to flow over her own history, daily. I thought about all the Philadelphians who had crossed over her, sat beside her, fished from her, waded through her, rowed down her. I thought about how it would feel to reflect a comet, or to be skated on, or to search endlessly for someone or something to love.

I wanted to write the river's autobiography, in other words—a strange enough idea, by some standards. I knew I'd need a lot of time in bookstacks, in archives, talking to people. Time I'd have difficulty stealing.

So I wrote about what I hoped to do, wrote a preface, wrote about me, and sent all that in with a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant application. Extreme good luck was on my side, and in 2005, I was one of several artists who won. Time had been granted. A book could be made.

There are an amazing number of open doors out there. Resources that validate, fund, and provide. Lifelines. Check out the following sites, for example, and start building your bridges.

http://www.proofpositive.com/contests/writecontests.htm
http://www.winningwriters.com/resources/ur_web_detail.php?subcategory_code=STUD
http://www.teenink.org/Resources/ContestsR.html