NEA hopefuls, start your grant engines

This week, the National Endowment for the Arts opened the application period for its new round of literature grants. Novelists, time to start polishing up those CVs.

The NEA makes grants of $25,000 to individual writers each year. Who can apply alternates between poets one year and writers of prose the next. The 2014 cycle is open to authors of fiction and creative nonfiction.

Here’s what it takes to be eligible: from Jan. 1, 2006, to Feb. 28, 2013, you have published:

• At least five different short stories, works of short fiction, excerpts from novels or memoirs, or creative essays (or any combination thereof) in two or more literary journals, anthologies, or publications that regularly include fiction and/or creative nonfiction as a portion of their format; or
• A volume of short fiction or a collection of short stories; or
• A novel or novella; or
• A volume of creative nonfiction.

The 2014 grant cycle includes two kinds of organizational grants -- Art Works and Challenge America Fast-Track -- that are open to literary nonprofits.

The Art Works grants support organizations that connect readers and writers and literary magazines and presses. The grants also are open to innovative publishing projects and those that involve new technologies. Ira Silverberg, the new NEA director of literature, will hold a webinar Feb. 5 to further explain and answer questions about the grants.

The Challenge America Fast-Track grants, which are $10,000 and require a $10,000 match, primarily support small- and mid-sized organizations with projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved populations.

Writers hoping to apply must submit their applications by Feb. 28, 2013. The Arts Works grants’ initial deadline is March 7, and the Challenge America grant applications are due May 23.

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