Announcing the 7th Gift of Freedom
“The Gift of Freedom is one of the heftiest grants available to writers anywhere and is the largest open solely to women in the United States.”—Poets & Writers The 7th Gift of Freedom application is now open Deadline: November 2, 2015
Where Robindale Meets Woolf
I was writing my application for the Gift of Freedom about this time of year in 2012, just as I expect hundreds of women writers will be doing in coming weeks. I was going on faith, I was remembering an entry from Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary in which she’s considering Byron—how as a young man he never believed in his poetry and so became “Byronic.” On the other hand, she says, “The Wordsworths and the Keatses believe in that as...
Working in Silence
Silence is your treasure. Do not exchange it for an easy life. This is my revision of a sentence by Zen-Getsu, which I came across as an epigraph and am keeping as my watchwords for these next few months up in my room. The original subject is poverty. What I understand to be at the heart of the counsel is the worth of the difficult thing. Difficult gifts–poverty or silence, possibilities for greatness, whatever your own...
Windows
June 24, 2014 When I wrote my application for the Gift of Freedom, one of my essays followed some words from Virginia Woolf offered as a prompt. The quote began like this: “Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time, the very walls are permeated by their creative force…” I’m now six months into my Gift of Freedom, six months in the room of myself. If I were writing a poem about this, the walls would be...
“Beautiful Caves”
Kate Gale asks Gift of Freedom winner Diane Gilliam, “In a world where almost anyone would rather be involved in commerce or consumer culture or interaction with the screen, why poetry? It’s not as active as football, not as immediate as mall shopping, not as intrusive as Facebook. It is ancient and quiet, sitting on the side, waiting. It is contemplative and has no place in our modern culture. Or does it? What is...
“Two Edges”
March 28, 2013 As I begin to feel my way toward speaking about Virginia Woolf, there’s a song that keeps coming through and since I’m a believer in anything that keeps trying to come through I’m going to let it in. It’s a song by Joan Manuel Serrat based on a small poem titled “La saeta” by Antonio Machado. It speaks to a traditional Andalusian song type, sung this time of year to the “Jesus de la agonia” in which the singer asks...
“Girl”
Whatever it is she is wanting, it is not too much to ask. We would give it to her if we could, now we are grown women in a car outside the small yellow house where she is forever fifteen, forever leaning her elbows on the front windowsill, pretending not to watch for whatever it is she’s wanting. The living room curtains are closed behind her. Behind her, her mother and sister are fighting. Your sister waged a war in that house, is...
Diane Gilliam 6th Gift of Freedom Winner, Poetry
Diane Gilliam tells women’s urgent stories in poetry that is both stunning and accessible. Her recent work illuminates her interest in the interactive role myths, fairy tales, and other received stories play in how we become who we mean to be. Gilliam describes the Gift of Freedom grant as “actual, practical help for women who need to do their work in a world that often doesn’t know how much it needs that work, and...
ire’ne lara silva 6th Gift of Freedom Genre Finalist, Fiction
Fiction Genre Finalist Ire’ne Lara Silva’s work speaks for those on the margins. Her fierce, primal voice stands at the intersection of poetry and prose, and is concerned with the question of transformation: how do you find the way through pain, grief, and loss on an individual and communal level? She writes of her Gift of Freedom creative project plan: I’m working on two creative projects: my first novel, NACI, and a second short...
Florencia Ramirez, 6th Gift of Freedom Genre Finalist, Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction Genre Finalist Florencia Ramirez’ proposed creative project, Eat Less Water, is an environmental anthem for our time backed by a strong literary voice. Her writing is an estuary where the different rivers of her personality and experience converge. The salt water of her public policy training at the University of Chicago, the fresh water of her creative writing instruction, the brackish water of the activist, and...
Barb Johnson Awarded 5th Gift of Freedom
Barb Johnson has spent most of her adult life working as a carpenter. In 2004, at age forty-seven, she entered the MFA program at The University of New Orleans. During her time there, she won the Robert F. Gibbons Award, The Svenson Award for Fiction, The Gulf Coast Teachers of Creative Writing Award, Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers, and a grant from The Astraea Foundation. She has been a finalist for the...
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