May 26, 2012

$50,000 Gift of Freedom Award for women writers from AROHO - deadline November 1

A Room of Her Own’s $50,000 Gift of Freedom Award

6th Gift of Freedom Grant Cycle Categories: Poetry, Playwrighting, Fiction, & Creative Nonfiction
Postmark deadline: November 1, 2012

Thanks to tremendous support from friends, advocates, and fellow writers, we are privileged to announce the 6th $50,000 Gift of Freedom award: stronger, more prestigious, and of greater benefit to even more women.

The 6th $50,000 Gift of Freedom competition will determine finalists from each genre (creative nonfiction, fiction, playwrighting, & poetry). One genre finalist will be awarded the $50,000 Gift of Freedom grant. The three remaining genre finalists will each be awarded a $5000 prize and eligibility to attend a future AROHO Retreat for Women Writers benefitted by a Gift of Freedom Legacy Fellowship.

The $50,000 Gift of Freedom award is the largest of its kind for women writers. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s tenet that a woman must have money and a room of her own in order to write, the Gift of Freedom commissions a creative project by a promising woman writer/artist ready to restructure their life in order to complete their work within the two year period of the grant.

AROHO selects award recipients who not only demonstrate their talent, but also their motivation. These women must have solid creative goals and a specific project to accomplish during the two-year term of the grant. They should be able to show a track record of commitment to their art in addition to substantial efforts to be self-sufficient. In determining a recipient, we also consider the potential impact of the artist’s or writer’s proposed work on the broader community. We support women with a social, as well as an artistic vision.

Grant winners agree to a “moral” contract requiring them to commit to a specific goal resulting in a finished work. They receive mentorship and support throughout the grant period, and as a result give back to A Room of Her Own Foundation by going on to mentor successive Gift of Freedom recipients.

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