Announcing the VMI Literary Fellowship

For a writer of exceptional promise with a manuscript in progress, who has faced significant barriers to fulfilling that promise, including but not limited to racism, poverty or class barriers, geographic dislocation or refugee status, single parenthood, disability or serious illness. Fellowship includes a full scholarship (value $3,234.00) to the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive 2021 program to work with award-winning poet and VMI Director Elee Kraljii Gardiner. While Canadian, American and international applicants can apply, please note communication and work will be in English. Winning candidate will be a feature reader at the program finale reading in June 2021 and may be interviewed for publication.

Apply by November 9, 2020
Please submit your application in an email with one attachment (a Word document with all components within) to info@vancouvermanuscriptintensive.com

Application should include:

• a cover letter briefly introducing yourself. If you have previously studied writing (workshops, programs, mentors), please let us know.
• a statement about the intended direction for your project that includes a mention of aesthetics or influences
• 20 pages of work (double-spaced, 12pt Times New Roman)

About the mentor
Elee Kraljii Gardiner is the author of two poetry books, Trauma Head and serpentine loop, and editor of the anthologies Against Death: 35 Essays on Living and V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Her writing has won or been shortlisted for the Cogswell Poetry Award, Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, Montaigne Medal, bpNichol Chapbook Award, Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, Souster Award, Far Horizons Poetry Award, City of Vancouver Book Award, Lina Chartrand Award for Social Justice in Poetry, Best of the Net, and Pandora’s Box BC Mentor Award. She founded Thursdays Writing Collective, a beloved non-profit organization, and through its ten years she edited and published nine of its anthologies. She holds an MA in Hispanic Literature from University of British Columbia and an MFA in Poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Originally from Boston, Elee now lives in Vancouver on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Peoples.