I will not take these things for granted

Today I received the happy confirmation that, out of a record pool of 226 applicants, the Indiana Arts Commission has selected me as one of the 2007-2008 recipients of a $2000 Individual Artist Grant.

I think they were going to be awarding about 40 grants -- I haven't yet seen the list of recipients. I'm dying to find out which of the other literature proposals got funded!

There will be more details about my project to follow, because -- dig this -- blogging about the whole process was a part of my proposal. Hee! I will tag grant-related posts with the tag "2008_IAP_Grant" so they can be followed here. For now, suffice it to say that I am going to be one busy poet for the next twelve months or so -- and of course there is plenty of paperwork.

I also need to insert a small caveat -- in the "everyone should have such problems!" department, I am going to have to revise my proposal because of getting the Agha Shahid Ali Scholarship from FAWC -- since the workshop is part of the project being funded. Yikes! I did NOT expect to get both the scholarship and the grant -- but I am NOT complaining!! --The revision, as I understand it, means that the IAC has the opportunity to re-evaluate my proposal. But I have already figured out how to handle this, I think, and hopefully it won't be a problem.

Yeah yeah, everyone should have such problems. *grin*

So, more later on the details of the project. For now, if you'll excuse me, I have a major BUTT-WAGGLING HAPPY DANCE ALL AROUND MY LIVING ROOM that needs to be performed....