Unlock your potential and elevate your writing career with our "Fund Your Muse" workshop! This strategy-packed class is designed for writers of all genres who are ready to take the next step in securing funding for their creative endeavors. Whether you're eyeing a literary grant, fellowship, scholarship, or a national or international writers' residency in 2025 or 2026, this workshop is your essential guide to navigating the process.

What You'll Learn:

• Mastering the Project Statement: Say goodbye to confusion with our  strategies for crafting a compelling Statements
• Showcasing Your Growth: Discover how to effectively demonstrate a rising trajectory in your writing journey—an essential factor 
• Navigating Clarity: Learn how to structure your application using headings and “buckets,” making your statement easily navigable for reviewers
• Crafting Concise Personal Statements: Leave the workshop with a completed first draft of your personal or "artist" statement that is clear, concise, and impactful
• Marketing Your Work: Understand the critical role of the marketing angle in your applications and how to present yourself as a compelling candidate

Join us for this transformative workshop and equip yourself with the tools to successfully fund your muse. Register now and take the first step toward realizing your creative dreams!

All class meetings will be held via Zoom. The link to join your Zoom classroom will be provided on the morning of your class. Please check spam folders if you do not receive an email confirmation upon registration. For more information on how to download or use Zoom, please click here.

Meet Your Instructor:
Lyzette Wanzer, MFA

Lyzette Wanzer’s work appears in over thirty literary journals, books, and magazines. Library Journal named her book, TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press 2022), a Top 10 Best Social Sciences Book. Publishers Weekly featured the book in Fall 2022. Lyzette is a contributor to Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth From the Margins (Wayne State University Press 2023), Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area (Pease Press 2019), and the multi-award-winning The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2012).

A National Writers’ Union and Authors Guild member, Lyzette’s work has been supported with grants from Center for Cultural Innovation, San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Black Artist Foundry, The Awesome Foundation, and California Humanities, a National Endowment for the Humanities partner. She has been awarded writing residencies at Blue Mountain Center (NY), Kimmel Harding Center for the Arts (NE), Playa Summer Lake (OR), Horned Dorset Colony (NY), Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow (AR), Headlands Center for the Arts (CA), The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada, PlySpace (IN), The Anderson Center (MN), and she has been named a 2023-2025 Lucas Arts Fellow for her upcoming Montalvo Arts Center residency.

Lyzette is Founder of the fully funded Muses & Melanin Fellowship for BIPOC Creative Writers, a professional development program for aspiring authors.

Course Expectations

• Students should be computer savvy and prepared to engage in a range on hands-on activities. Registrants will receive a pre-work assignment one week prior to the first class meeting.

Course Skeleton

• Week 1: What funders look for in applications * Evidence that you are not ready * Artist Statement Brainstorming Exercise * Where you’ll need an artist statement * Create your literary CV
• Week 2: Homework review * What is a fiscal sponsor? * Preparing for critique * Partner Praise Sandwich: Artist Statement * Top 10 Tips for Grant Applications * Writing Sample Requests * The importance of a literary LinkedIn profile * Exercises
• Week 3: Homework review * LI True or False Quiz * Introduction to grants databases * Introduction to contests * Introduction to residencies * Write your author bio
• Week 4: Homework review * Introduction to fellowships * Who’s reading your application? * Join a professional literary organization * Complete lit org worksheets * Artist statement shares 

We offer full refunds for cancellation with written notice up until 7 days before your class start date. From 6 days to more than 24 hours before class begins, we offer a 25% refund. If you drop a class less than 24 hours before the class begins or after it has started, you are ineligible for a refund.