Arts Council Literature Bursary Award Information Clinic

The deadline for the next round of the Arts Council’s Literature (English language) Bursary Award is Thursday, 3 February 2022 at 5.30 pm. In advance of this deadline, the Arts Council’s Literature Team will give an information clinic, which will outline how to make an application, and how they are assessed. The clinic will also highlight key changes to the Award in the first round of 2022. The clinic will be held on Wednesday, 12 January 2022 at 10.30 – 11.45 am on Zoom. The presentation from the Literature Team should take about 30 minutes, and there will also be time for questions and answers.

To register for the event on Zoom, please click here.

The clinic will also be recorded and posted on the Words Ireland Youtube channel.

About the Literature Bursary Award & Key Changes for 2022

The Arts Council’s Literature Bursary Award is one of the most critical supports that the Council offers to individual writers and picture book illustrators. Given the addition of the Agility Award to the Arts Council’s funding programmes, the 2022 Literature Bursary Award is focused on more established artists.

This round of the Bursary Award seeks to provide mid-career and established writers and picture-book illustrators with the time and resources to think, research, reflect, create and write. It enables writers and picture-book illustrators to concentrate on their creative work for a period of time, usually by releasing them from their financial commitments. For the purpose of the Bursary Award, mid-career and established is defined by the Arts Council as writers and illustrators with “a demonstrable publishing track record, having published at least one full collection, novel or picture book with an independent, recognised publisher.”

For writers and illustrators who are at the emerging stage of their career, and may have a more limited publishing track record, they should consider applying for the Agility Award.

The Agility Award, which has the same closing date as the Bursary Round 1, is open to writers and picture book illustrators at any stage of their careers, and we are particularly interested in applications from more emerging literature artists through the Agility Award.

Links to applications for both awards can be found here: https://www.artscouncil.ie/available-funding/