Money for writers #7

A new foundation established by the Auckland Writers Festival offers up to 10 one-off grants of $2000-5000.

The Matatuhi Foundation will provide opportunities for writers to develop and promote their works, and will fund activities that contribute to literacy.

Festival chair Pip Muir says, “When the Festival began almost 20 years ago, meetings were held around a kitchen table.”

Yes, they were. The first few were at Tessa Duder’s kitchen table in Herne Bay. Subsequent subcommittee meetings – we had a lot of subcommittees – were held at, among other places, Sarah Sandley’s kitchen table in Parnell and Sarah Fraser’s kitchen table in Balmoral.

“Since then,” says Muir, “the appetite to engage with writers from New Zealand and around the world has grown exponentially and with it the opportunity to deepen our commitment to our literary landscape. It is absolutely fantastic that the Festival has reached a point where it can further contribute to the national reading and writing community.”

Yes it is, given how we struggled financially in the early years.

Inaugural chair Anne Blackburn says, “I very much look forward to receiving applications from groups that seek to engage more readers and also from our writers, whose words and ideas enrich our lives.”

The Foundation website says it will fund projects that:

Relate to New Zealand literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry)

Demonstrate innovation

Deliver broad community benefit outcomes

Use innovative and cost-effective platforms including digital

Are new or business expansion projects rather than business as usual

Represent well considered, robust propositions with identified, achievable and measureable deliverables

It says it will generally not cover:

Business-as-usual activities

Ongoing operational or staff overheads

International travel

Projects that can access full funding elsewhere

Projects connected to the annual Auckland Writers Festival.

The deadline for applications is 31 October.