Fund Your Creative Projects
About five years ago I was visiting Portland, Oregon, when my cell phone rang. I was getting ready to attend my son’s college graduation, and almost didn’t answer. I’m glad I did. On the other end of the line was Mary Johnson, calling to tell me I’d been selected to receive the 4th Gift of Freedom, a $50,000 award from A Room of Her Own Foundation. Imagine my surprise! I’d spent a lot of care and effort on the application, but I knew...
“Those Ugly Voices:” An AROHO Feature with Eliot Sloan, Gift of Freedom Finalist
I teach creative writing at a girls’ high school. Needless to say, I was nervous when I got the job: how does one really TEACH creative writing? What if I failed, what if they didn’t produce anything? I was consumed by my own fears. Here I was three years ago, my first day, trying to talk to these amazing girls–these girls who were all going to college in a few months, who had won national science awards and...
“Like Eating Butterbeans,” by Barbara Presnell
When I was growing up in North Carolina, summers were hot and busy with work of all kinds. Mid-July meant somebody from a nearby farm would bring us a bushel or more of butterbeans, and we’d shell until our fingers were yellow, filling large pans then putting up pints and quarts for winter. Butterbeans were beautiful to look at, in their waxy light green delicate skins, but when cooked, they were dull, mushy, pulpy things that tasted...
“Take Up your Bed and Walk:” An AROHO Feature with Bridget Birdsall, Gift of Freedom Finalist
Dear Gift of Freedom Applicant: After years of plugging away at my writing, attending countless workshops and earning an MFA, I had filled hundreds of pages, with hundreds of words, that never managed to journey any farther than the filing cabinet in my closet. So, when a friend told me about the Gift of Freedom Award, which of course sounded too good to be true, I decided to take a chance and put my words out into the world. This was...
On Rejection, Mira Bartók
Fear of Rejection from: “How I Became the Grant Queen and How You Can Too” by Mira Bartók The fear of being rejected prevents a lot of women from applying for opportunities out there. This phobia reminds me about that old song we sang in the schoolyard when we were kids. I loved it because it was so gross and everyone who knows me knows that trapped inside this 48-year-old woman’s body is a twelve-year-old boy dying to put a...
Straight Talk about Grants
At AROHO, we want to help you become your best writer, and we believe the Gift of Freedom Application can help uncover some of the obstacles on the path to personal breakthrough and creative “success.” Here are our tips for helping you make the most of the application and for helping improve the chances of your submissions in general. Hygiene (For highly creative women, this is often the area where mistakes are made) The...
“Pull the Lever!” An AROHO Anthem by Lauren Baldwin
Lauren Baldwin completed her MFA in Fiction at Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010 and her JD at the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1992. She is a Judicial Hearing Officer in the Family Court division of the Second Judicial District Court in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Lauren has attended every AROHO retreat since its inception and is the retreat’s hospitality coordinator (the woman with wine and duct tape). She is a...
“Self-Doubt, Sacred Drift, and Submissions,” Melita Schaum
Melita Schaum won the fall 2010 A Room of Her Own Foundation’s prestigious Orlando Prize in Creative Nonfiction, an honor that—in addition to providing $1000 and publication in The Los Angeles Review–earned her a Pushcart Prize nomination. What is she doing right? A Room of Her Own got the inside scoop, as well as an audio clip from her recent ventures into the world of mixed media and sound arts. Melita Schaum is an English...
“Sister,” by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
Because all the silverware is dirty, Krystal uses an aluminum tablespoon to smear the yellow glue into the plastic bag. The same kind of bag she uses for Baby Girl’s bologna sandwiches on those days when she packs a picnic and takes her little sister to the park. Krystal likes to go. She likes the sound of the running water, how the creek carries the air, the way this air feels cold as she stands on the rocks watching Baby Girl play....
“The Locust: A Foundational Narrative,” by Ellen McGrath Smith
It lay there like a father who had worked a double-shift, not dead, but not ready to resume its upright role any time soon. When the graying locust fell from lightning, I learned that the directions and pulls of the earth operated independently of my location. The tree was on a hill behind our house; it was broken by electric teeth, nosed over by a dogged western wind, and even though the center of my drama was that it could have...
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What treasures are secreted in the deepest places, the bathys, and how will we recover their promise?
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The Refracting Wave Jun 27, 2025
