The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice will once again award ten-thousand-dollar grants to a poet and a fiction writer, but with a deadline falling a few months earlier than last year's. Entries for the 2011 awards, given to lesbian writers for work with lesbian content, will be due by the end of the business day on March 22.
Two finalists in each genre will receive one thousand dollars each and six honorable mentions will be awarded one hundred dollars each, with at least one of the grants given to a writer west of the Mississippi. A panel of distinguished lesbian writers, which has in the past been populated by writers such as Sharon Bridgforth, Staceyanne Chin, Kristen Hogan, Achy Obejas, and Pamela Sneed, will select the grantees.
For guidelines on what to submit and access to Astraea's online submission system (their preferred mode of entry), visit the foundation's Web site.
In the video below, 2010 poetry winner Lenelle Moïse reads a poem inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat over a montage of his paintings.