Periodically, we pose questions about issues artists face in their work and lives. This month, we're posing a question to a group of curators, editors, and presenters that we first posed in 2017: If you could convince artists to change ONE thing about the way they approach you/your organization for opportunities, what would it be? Aynel David Guerra, Curator, Director of … [Read more...]
GennaRose Nethercott: Beasts and Boxes
GennaRose Nethercott (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow '18) knew she had to pursue writing as a career when, during college, taking breaks from writing caused her "bouts of ennui." "I thought, if this is how it's going to be, then I've got to go all in. I'm going to do this for real." Since then, she's written everything from stories to poems to song lyrics to … [Read more...]
Announcing Awards in Choreography, Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, and Painting
Mass Cultural Council is honored to announce the 2020 Artist Fellowship awards in Choreography, Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, and Painting. The awards include 18 fellowships of $15,000, and 16 finalist awards of $1,500. See a list of this year's fellows and finalists, to date. The awards are anonymously judged, based solely on the artistic quality and creative ability of the … [Read more...]
Shilpi Suneja: Writing a Silent History
Shilpi Suneja's (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow '18) novel-in-progress A House of Caravans remembers a history that's often been silent. The story is inspired by Suneja's grandfather's experience during The Partition of India in 1947, when the British Indian Empire was divided into India and Pakistan. Suneja says the disruption it caused still shapes the sociocultural … [Read more...]
Alexis Ivy: What Counts
Alexis Ivy (Poetry Fellow '18) can't get away from poetry. It informs her work in social justice, working with homeless populations. Even when she writes in different literary forms, the focus and specificity of poetry carries over. In this audio clip, Ivy reads her poem Taking the Homeless Census. She also discusses the poem's origin as well as the way creativity, social … [Read more...]