• Applicants must be Australian citizens or permanent residents
• Authors and visual artists must be mid-career
• Authors must have professionally published/performed one full-length work and no more than four full-length works of their own creative writing (including professionally presented plays) by a publisher/theatre company in the following literary genres: fiction, literary non-fiction, children’s and young adult literature, picture book illustration, poetry, graphic novels, and writing for performance (plays)
• Self-published works do not count towards eligibility
• Visual artists must have a minimum of five years’ professional experience and no more than 10 years’ professional experience.
• Visual artists should have no more than 10 solo exhibitions in public or commercial galleries (this should not include group shows)
• Applicants may submit one application per round to the Cultural Fund provided they have already acquitted any outstanding Cultural Fund grants

Amount of grant: $25,000

• Four grants in total will be awarded in 2022 – two grants for writers and two grants for visual artists
• One funding round is held every year.

For deadlines and eligibility guidelines, please click here. 

I have published work in literary journals and magazines – am I eligible for a Create Grant? 

You must have published at least one full-length work of your own writing.

 Can I apply for a Create Grant to write for an academic journal? 

No. Create Grants support the creation of creative work and are not intended to support academics with scholarly or academic works that are for an academic audience.

 Does writing a film script fall within the eligible category of creative writing?

No. Create Grants support creative writing and writing for performance (plays).

 If two people are working on a collaboration, can we apply for one grant together? 

Yes, two people can apply. However, it is preferable for you to nominate just one eligible person on the application form. The other applicant must also fulfill the eligibility requirements.

 What do you mean by ‘mid-career’ artist? 

Visual artists must have a minimum of five years’ professional experience and no more than ten years’ professional experience, with no more than 10 solo exhibitions in public or commercial galleries (this should not include group shows).

 What is a full-length work?

A full-length work can be a work of fiction or literary non-fiction, a children’s book, a book of poetry, a play etc all written by the one author.

 What isn’t a full-length work?

A full-length work is NOT one story in an anthology; a story in a literary journal; one story in a published book of short stories

What’s involved in the peer assessment process?

Applications are assessed by a panel of three independent peers from the writing, publishing, and visual arts sectors with broad experience. Peers will assess all applications for their literary and artistic merit.