Writing Collaborative wins $30,000 NEA Grant
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News from the Missoula Writing Collaborative
MONTANA — On January 15, 2020, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that the Missoula Writing Collaborative was the recipient of a $30,000 Art Works grant for 2020. The arts education grant will fund 24 of the 12-week poetry writing residencies in seven schools on the Flathead Reservation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
The residencies will also focus on Indian art and poetry. Writers worked with translator Aspen Decker in winter months to do ledger art and poetry. Writers will also teach students ekphrastic poetry, which is poetry inspired by art, using art by American Indian artists Corwin “Corky” Clairmont and Jaune Quick-to-See.
NEA Chairman Mary Anne Carter announced that organizations in every state in the nation, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, will receive federal funding for arts projects from the National Endowment for the Arts in this round of fiscal year 2020 funding. Overall, 1,187 grants totaling $27.3 million will provide Americans opportunities for arts participation, and this year they include projects that celebrate the Women’s Suffrage Centennial.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support grants throughout the entire country that connect people through shared experiences and artistic expression,” said chairman Carter. “These projects provide access to the arts for people of all abilities and backgrounds in both urban centers and rural communities.”
Caroline Patterson, MWC executive director, said MWC writer and musician Caroline Keys will continue teaching in elementary schools in Arlee and Pablo and the middle school in Ronan. Keys will add in two new school residencies at Charlo and K. Harvey Wilson elementary schools. Nonfiction writer Emily Withnall will teach at Dixon and St. Ignatius elementary schools.
As students write form poetry and free verse, they learn about description, metaphor, sensory detail, pacing and rhythm in writing. Writers will produce student poetry anthologies and school readings for parents and teachers. There will be an all-reservation youth reading in November 2020.
