All projects must be in English. Texts being submitted to academic institutions to fulfill degree requirements will not be accepted. Projects must be on some aspect of contemporary visual art (by which we mean art made since World War II). Projects on post-WWII work in adjacent fields—architecture, design, film, theater/performance, sound, etc.—will only be considered if they directly and significantly engage the discourses and concerns of contemporary visual art. Projects with a pre-WWII component will only be considered if the project's main focus is contemporary.

Projects involving collaboration between two writers or between a writer and a practitioner in another field are eligible for consideration (except in the short-form writing category, which does not accept collaborations). Only one application per collaboration will be accepted: collaborators must select one member to be the primary contact.

Ideally, applications should have a completion date of approximately six months to one year after the grant award date (longer if needed for book projects). By completion date, we are referring to the date the text is finished—not the date of publication.

Although completion dates will vary depending on the nature of the specific project, it is worth noting that various factors regarding timing may contribute to the success of an application. Projects slated for completion in the months immediately after the December announcement of awards do not allow for a high degree of engagement or assistance from the program, as funds cannot be retroactively applied to costs incurred prior to the receipt of a grant. Conversely, since the goal is to support the realization of new works of arts writing, projects slated for completion too long after the announcement of awards are also less appropriate for this program. Please note that the grant period for short-form writing and blog applicants is one year, beginning with the announcement of grants in December.