Roscommon County Council Arts Office has announced details of the 2020 Roscommon Chapman Bursary. The bursary is to the value of €500 and will go towards the cost of publishing what is known in the trade as a ‘chapbook’, i.e. a literary pamphlet.
The chapbook award is for a collection and is not open to a single, long story, or indeed one very long poem. A chapbook will typically contain between fifteen and twenty-five poems and will be about thirty pages in length, from cover to cover. A short fiction chapbook might contain three to six stories, depending on the length of each story.
The Roscommon Chapbook Award is aimed primarily at emerging writers in Roscommon who have not had a book published. Published writers will, however, be considered, should they decide to enter, though preference will be for an unpublished writer.
All applicants must be able to prove a strong connection to the county (born in, living in, strong family ties, etc.).
The intention is for the successful applicant to have his or her chapbook published before the end of 2020 and the applicant must demonstrate the ability to achieve this in his/her application.
The 2020 open competition will be judged by multi-award-winning poet and novelist, Kerry Hardie.
The 2018 bursary was won by Roscommon writer, Kevin Hora, for his highly original collection of short stories, titled The Pornographer’s Model.
Last year’s winner was Rory Duffy with his superb collection of poems, intriguingly titled A Guide to the Items Recovered from the Stomach of the Last Wild Whale.
An application form is available from Roscommon County Council Arts Office. For further information, please contact Aine Butler at abutler@roscommoncoco.ie or telephone 09066 37271.
