Eligible applicants
Literary festival, performance series, and sector development categories are open to:
- ad hoc groups/collectives with a permanent physical address in Ontario
- Ontario-based not-for-profit arts organizations
Literary book and magazine publishing categories are open to:
- not-for-profit arts organizations, as well as eligible for-profit book and magazine publishers, with a permanent physical address in Ontario, that
- publish primarily in English;
- have published no fewer than two eligible books or literary magazine issues in the 12 months prior to the program deadline, unless that publisher is an online magazine that has posted literary content regularly for the last 12 months;
- are free to make their own editorial decisions and sign contracts in their own name; and
- pay contributors’ fees or royalties and issue contributors’ contracts (note: all applicants must already be paying contributors)
- Publishers that are established on a for-profit basis, either as sole proprietorships or as incorporated organizations, must be Canadian-owned and -controlled (see Program-specific definitions below) with the head office (at least 50 per cent of employees and editorial, management and financial control) in Ontario.
Read the Guide to OAC Project Programs for more eligibility information.
Important: Applicants must meet program and OAC eligibility criteria at the time of application and for the duration of your project.
To apply
Complete and submit an application in Nova, OAC’s online grant application system. You will be able to do this approximately two months before the deadline.
Before applying, you must:
Your application includes:
- basic information about the project
- your answers to application questions
- project budget
- artistic examples: audiovisual documentation of relevant recent activities or participating artists; publishers must submit physical or digital copies of recent eligible issues or eligible books, along with excerpts from recently-published literary work
- support documents: applicant’s history and key participants’ bios, one or two catalogues, brochures, posters, programs, flyers, video or other materials
Complete instructions and requirements are in the application in Nova.
For information on how assessors rate applications see the Evaluation Rubric – Activity Projects.
For help creating a profile or submitting an application in Nova, see the Nova User Guide.
Program-specific definitions
A literary magazine is a:
magazine that publishes original literary works in a print or electronic format as its primary activity. The contributors must be predominantly Canadian and contributions must be primarily published in English.
A Canadian-owned and controlled for-profit publisher is a:
For share capital companies
- corporation in which at least 75 percent of the shares have full voting rights under all circumstances with
- shares representing at least 75 percent of the paid-up capital beneficially held by Canadian citizens and/or permanent residents ordinarily resident in Canada, and/or by Canadian-owned and -controlled corporations and
- not subject to the control or direction of non-residents
For non-share capital companies
- a corporation with at least 75 percent of its membership composed of Canadian citizens and/or permanent residents ordinarily resident in Ontario and not subject to the control or direction of non-residents, or
- a registered sole proprietorship owned by an individual who is a Canadian citizen and/or permanent resident ordinarily resident in Ontario
Eligible books
Eligible books are used:
- to determine a publisher’s eligibility for this program;
- to determine appropriate funding acknowledgement; and
- to select support material for submission with grant applications.
Authorship
Eligible books contain at least 50 percent Canadian-authored creative content (literary and graphic) and are in English. Project support for publishing in French or Indigenous languages is available from the OAC’s Francophone and Indigenous Arts programs.
Format
Eligible books are original works of at least 48 printed pages (at least 24 pages for children’s books) published for a trade market readership in cloth, paper, or digital formats (i.e., books sold subject to the normal trade discount of 40 percent or more).
Co-publications are eligible if they originated with the Canadian publisher.
Translations into French, English or Indigenous languages of Canadian-authored works are eligible if they meet all other eligibility criteria.
Content
Eligible books are works of literary, artistic, or cultural importance in the genres of fiction; poetry; drama; literary and arts criticism; autobiography, biography, memoir and essays; comics and graphic novels; works for children and young adults; and creative and literary works of history, politics, social issues, science, travel, etc.
Ineligible books
An ineligible book is any book that does not meet the authorship, format, and content criteria stated above. Additionally, books in the following categories are not considered eligible:
- books commissioned or paid for by an individual, group, political party or company
- co-publications with governments or government departments or agencies
- books for which the author receives no royalties or the author has contributed financially towards the publication costs
- curriculum materials
- catalogues of exhibitions
- scholarly or academic monographs, or books that are collections of specialized scholarly or conference papers
Ineligible Magazines
This program will not fund:
magazines that are not primarily literary publications, including but not limited to:
- magazines primarily focused on other arts disciplines;
- lifestyle magazines;
- magazines devoted primarily to reportage, political advocacy, the promotion of commercial enterprises, religion or spirituality;
- scholarly magazines and journals; and
- newsletters, bulletins or house organs that publish material directed primarily to an organization’s membership, or are not editorially and financially independent from a parent organization.