Literary Creation Projects (Works for Publication)

Who can apply

You must be an Ontario resident.

Applicants whose professional publishing history makes them eligible to apply to Literary Creation Projects: Works for Publication may also apply if they have an eligible project.

Read the Guide to OAC Project Programs for more eligibility information.

You must be an Ontario resident and have a recent professional publishing history with:

1. at least one traditionally published book (minimum of 48 pages) for which you have a publishing contract and
2. receive royalties
3. or
4. at least three traditionally published short stories, comics, poems or other works for which you have received
5. payment. Works can appear in magazines, newspapers, websites, and anthologies. Contest-winning work is
6. considered publication
7. or
8. a professional self-publishing practice, demonstrated by either:

• sales of more than 400 copies of a self-published work of prose or 200 copies of a self-published work of poetry
• within the 24 months prior to your first application to this program. OAC may request sales records. Sales of
• ebooks and print books are equally recognized. Sales of print books shorter than 48 pages or ebooks shorter than
• 16,000 words are not recognized; or
• voting membership in a recognized professional writers’ association, including but not limited to the Canadian
• Authors’ Association (professional members only), League of Canadian Poets (full members only), Professional
• Writers’ Association of Canada (professional members only), and the Writers’ Union of Canada. Full voting
• membership in other professional writers’ associations, including regional, international, and non-English
• language groups, may be recognized at the OAC’s discretion. Provide the program officer with membership criteria
• before the deadline. Professional writers’ associations are incorporated as non-profit organizations and have
• published membership criteria that are compatible with the OAC’s definition of a professional artist.

9. Applicants whose professional performance history makes them eligible to apply to Literary Creation Projects: Works for Performance
10. may also apply if they have an eligible project.

Other eligibility requirements:

1. You may apply for only one Literary Creation Projects grant per year.
2. You may receive only one Literary Creation Projects grant for a particular project.

Read the Guide to OAC Project Programs for more eligibility

information.

works must be in one of the following genres:

• comic arts
• fiction (including novels, novellas, and short stories)
• literary non-fiction
• poetry
• young adult literature (text-based fiction and non-fiction, for middle-grade readers or older) Note: There are eligibility exceptions to all of the above genres. See Program-specific definitions, below.

1. Comic arts includes projects that are visual in nature; unified in narrative, style, theme, and/or concept; and
2. intended for professional publication as a book, series of comics, or web comic. Most projects will include both
3. text and visual elements. Wordless projects intended solely or primarily for publication, with a strong
4. sequential
5. structure or narrative direction, are eligible. Works for all ages are eligible.

The activities for which you are requesting funding:

1. cannot finish before you receive your grant results
2. the writing period funded by a grant must be completed no more than two years after you receive the grant results. You may continue to work on your funded manuscript after this date, but your grant must be fully spent by this time.

Not eligible:

Ineligible applicants

Student or academic publications, including scholarly monographs and articles published in peer-reviewed academic journals, may not be used to establish eligibility

Work that you have done as part of your employment may not be used to establish eligibility, unless you are a professional journalist or a professional writer of narrative content or visual artist/illustrator for the comics, film, television, or interactive digital media sectors

The following types of work are not eligible

children’s picture books

projects for which the author and/or illustrator do not own the intellectual property rights to their characters and/or narrative

commissioned adaptations of works in other media

play, film, broadcast, or interactive digital media scripts

books that are part of educational or academic programs

books that are to be ghost-written or for which the author is to be uncredited (including books where the applicant will not be identified as the author under their own name or a pseudonym that they use only for their own work

activity books, directories, index compilations, bibliographies with minimal critical content, travel guidebooks, instruction or self-help books, manuals, cookbooks, exhibition catalogues

commissioned industrial or business histories, or commissioned biographies

professional reference books aimed at a specialized audience

calendars, daybooks, agendas or almanacs or other books with minimal written content, except as provided for in comic arts eligibility criteria

books written primarily for an educational or scholarly market

manuscripts that are intended for publication in books that will include other authors as well (such as fiction anthologies