Australia Council Emerging Writers/Illustrators Initiative Grants Recipients

A BIG FAT CONGRATULATIONS to four Australian graphic novelists who have picked up between $10,000 and $15,000 each in grants to develop their respective projects. They are Tom Taylor, Patrick Grant and Dave Jones–all hailing from Victoria–as well as Julie Wynn Hunt from Tasmania who applied to fund a children's graphic novel/picture book hybrid. All in all, there were 174 eligible applications across several genres and mediums of which 10 were comics/graphic novels projects. As the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) Comics/Graphic Novels Portfolio holders we had anticipated that perhaps two comics/graphic novel proposals would pick up grants but we were delighted to discover that there were four recipients, which constituted  28.5% of the successful field. That's pretty good for this emerging medium. What's more important is that it will give these creators some quality writing/illustrating time so they can maintain momentum and complete their projects without distilling their creative energy by being forced to take on part time work. For more information about the grant process, go to the Assessment Meeting Report or to the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) website.