If you are not familiar with applying for grant funding, filling out an application form can be a daunting and baffling process. Ruth Harrison and Eva Lewin from Spread the Word will be running a free online workshop for London based writers on Wednesday 14 December 2022 all about Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) fund. They will talk you through the different questions in the DYCP form to help you think about how you can respond to them. They’ll give examples of what sort of projects have been previously funded and how Spread the Word has supported writers to achieve funding.
Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice is for individual artists to apply for lottery funding to develop a new piece of creative work and/or a new way of working. You can apply for up to £10,000 towards for e.g., mentoring, time to create new work, research, training or professional development costs. Whatever it is you want to do, the project you have in mind must be a clear development opportunity.
What you will need for the workshop:
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A clear idea of what your proposed project is, what you want to achieve and how you are going to go about it;
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Be able to show how your project is a real development opportunity for your creative practice and/or professional profile and networks and partnerships;
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Please read through all the ACE DYCP guidance beforehand, so that you are reasonably sure that what you have in mind is suitable for DYCP funding. (If what you want to do involves engaging audiences or participants, then you should go for a Project Grant instead.)
We strongly recommend you look at the successful applicant case studies on ACE’s website, https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/developing-your-creative-practice/dycp-case-studies.
This workshop will:
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Give you an insight into the purpose of the fund;
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Help you think through your project;
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Take you through key stages of the application process;
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Look at what makes a strong application;
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Provide opportunities for you to ask questions about your own proposal.
To be considered for DYCP you will also need to show at least one year’s track record as a writer outside of a formal educational setting. This could include being published or produced (e.g.: by small independent publisher or producer or mainstream publisher/producer), published in magazines, shortlisted for writing competitions or expression of interest from an agent, editor or producer, or working professionally on the poetry circuit.
We anticipate that demand will be high for this workshop so please only book a place if you are committed to attending. The workshop is open to writers of any literary form including screenwriting, playwriting and graphic novels. It is specifically tailored to writers in London.
Booking Your Place
The workshop is FREE but places are limited.
The Zoom workshop will be captioned and the caption text made available to participants afterwards. You are welcome to attend with your camera off. If you have other access needs please get in touch with us on [email protected] so we can support you as best we can to participate in the workshop.
Date: Wednesday 14 December 2022
Time: 7.00 – 8.30pm
Cost: FREE
Location: online, via zoom
About Ruth and Eva
Ruth Harrison joined Spread the Word in 2015. Her working life has been in the field of the arts and particularly in literature. She has been Director of Apples and Snakes, a literature development officer and programme manager at The Reading Agency. She is passionate about not only widening people’s engagement with writers and writing but also in developing writing talent. Widening participation and engagement alongside developing and building awareness of new voices has been core to her work.
At Spread the Word, Ruth is responsible for leading the company artistically and strategically and working with our highly skilled and dedicated team to make a difference to and for writers and their audiences in London.
Eva Lewin is Writer Development Manager at Spread the Word where she leads on the one-to-one support for writers, through feedback surgeries and professional development coaching.
Eva commissioned the Writing the Future research (published in 2015) into Black and Asian writers and publishers in the UK marketplace. She continues to work on the strategy to take forward the diversity agenda. Her twenty years’ experience in the literature sector includes curating creative writing programmes, co-directing the Hackney literature festival, running writers’ residencies and a shop-floor library at Ford’s car factory in Dagenham. Eva is an RD1st accredited coach (ILM Level 7 equivalent).
Published: 12 October 2022