I’m always astounded by how low the stakes are at the entry levels of oversupplied artistic fields. This is a $1000 grant for South Asian speculative lit. Not per month fit a year or a summer even. Just one $1000 grant.
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Maybe it’s the prestige/network? This winner is an experienced media industry person back in school for the “Iowa nonfiction writing program.” Not someone for whom I’d think $1000 would make much of a difference.
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I mean this wouldn’t even be much in India. $1000 = Rs. 70,000 might buy an aspiring science fiction writer trying to live in reasonable middle-class comfort 3 months in Bombay. Maybe a year in a remote small town.
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One reason I never bothered trying to break into “real” writing is there’s so many obviously better ways to make $ to sustain writing.
My first/last writing prize/grant type money in India was Rs. 600 in like 1988/8th grade. My first/last time in the US was $500 in grad school.
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While I’ve made a fair amount of money writing, this kind of grant/prize stuff is probably < $1000. If I’d had to rely on that kind of source for building a lifestyle around writing I’d have given up immediately. Writing is fun, but not worth that kind of scrounging to pursue.
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The point is not to suffer for your art, but to make sure the other guy suffers for his.
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