Bullets and Bandaids is a veteran-centric art therapy nonprofit whose focus is to facilitate relations between veterans and civilians through a collaborative, touring art exhibition. They are looking for 12 writers from the southeastern US to help shine a light on the depth and breadth of the human condition through the hyperbolic lens of veteran experience.
Basically, we have veterans tell a poignant story, which may cover any topic, as long as they aren’t derogatory toward a group of people. If they don’t want to write their own story, we find capable writers who can. After getting the story down in print, we hand it to an artist who creates a work based on it. We then tour participating cities with both the book and artwork, reinforcing our mission to bring about social change on both a micro and macro scale.
Why the might be interested: Beyond recognizing that they’ll be a part of a tour involving people from around the world that are coming together to celebrate their common humanity, all we can guarantee is that they will be paid a $100 stipend for their effort, they will be published, have a voice over created from their finished piece and will have a work of art based on what they wrote. I know it isn’t much, but we’re volunteer run and still can only afford so much. There’s also the touring aspect, which will give them more exposure, but “exposure” is kind of a dirty word for us. It immediately raises doubts as to whether or not they’re being taken advantage of. Still, it’s better than nothing. I’ve sent you the previous iteration of our program already, so you at least know the bar we’ve set for ourselves. As of now, we have a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and a poet Laureate and are partnering up with the Columbia Museum of Art, so they’ll be in good company.
What would happen: The writer would be given an interview that was previously recorded, as well as a rough transcript to help as needed. They would have until Jun 24th to come up with a semi-polished rough draft based on the interview. The actual finished written piece itself won’t be required until the end of August, but we need the rough drafts ahead of time to hand to the artists in order for them to create work in time to have photos printed and the book to be made in time for the tour. Once we have the work, we’ll edit as needed, send it back to make sure the grammatical aspects are where they need to be, then send them a check for $100, keeping them informed as we travel through NC, SC, and GA.
Expectations: They are also given a large breadth of license in regard to their voice, meaning that they only need to highlight and stay true to the subject and content/context of the story without being derogatory toward a group of people. It can be a poem, creative nonfiction, editorial, etc.. It just needs to be between 1-5 pages, 11pt font, single spaced and true to the subject and content/context. They are also welcome to reach out to the veteran if they have further questions that weren’t answered by the interview.
Anyone interested can go to our submissions page here: www.bulletsandbandaids.org/