Yesterday I received some incredible news and I well and truly cried. I’m the recipient of an Ontario Arts Council $12,000 Literary Creation Projects (Works for Publication) Grant.
For context, between disability and freelancing my income last year was under 14k. And now, this year, I’m getting almost that amount in a single grant. This is in addition to other support I’m getting this year from the OAC.
The impact of this type of support can’t be emphasized enough. This will allow me to live, and to further dedicate myself to my career without worrying constantly about being able to eat, to pay my rent, or to pay my medication.
The grant is to support my project “The Body Poetic”, a poetry collection that explores intersections of disability, memory, language, queerness, and ageing. My poetry chapbook, “We, Old Young Ones”, published last month by Frog Hollow Press and which has been doing really well, features some of the work that will appear in the collection.
One wonderful thing is that part of the research for a project like this is the acquisition of small press books on disability, pain, etc. A grant of this level enables me to get hard-to-find and small press books which directly allows me to further support my community.
This is life-changing, and it will allow me to take more creative risks. I’m so thankful to the OAC and the jurors for their support.
Dominik Parisien 