The Storyteller Initiative is a new fellowship program from Voice of Witness (VOW) that supports artists, storytellers and story gatherers, documentarians, oral historians, and multidisciplinary changemakers from historically marginalized communities. VOW will provide training, financial support, and assistance for participants to plan, develop, and activate their own storytelling project.
If your question is not answered below, email: editorial@voiceofwitness.org.
Info Session
An informational session will take place on Zoom on November 7th, 2024 at 11am PT / 2pm ET where the program coordinators can answer any additional questions. Attendance is not required to apply but is recommended. Register to join here.
Frequently Asked Questions
We are seeking works rooted in oral history practice, which must include some form of interviewing and story gathering. However, these projects don’t need to follow traditional oral history formats. Instead, we’re interested in innovative approaches that use story gathering techniques while exploring multiple formats or media to share stories with the public. We’re particularly excited about projects that incorporate place-based storytelling, cultural strategies, or socially engaged art to create meaning and foster dialogue in and with historically marginalized communities.
The project can be in any genre (audio, film, multimedia installation/exhibition, creative nonfiction, memoir, graphic narrative, digital microsite, or hybrid work) that helps to elevate stories and issues important to your community.
Examples of such work include:
- Rae Garringer’s Country Queers, a podcast based on interviews with queer folks living in rural areas of the U.S.
- Juania Sueños’ Unamerican Dreams: Immigrant Stories Interrupted by the State, a zine of photos and excerpts from family interviews about state-led violence
- Marcos Echeveria Ortiz’s Where We Were Safe, an online interactive oral history archive about salsa clubs in New York City
- Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, a book that depicts conversations and explorations about racism through poetry, prose, and visual art
These projects demonstrate how oral history methods can be creatively adapted to document community stories and engage audiences.
Fellows will be required to:
- Attend a mandatory cohort orientation on Monday, March 3, 2025 at 1pm-5pm Eastern Time
- Attend monthly 60-minute workshops on the 2nd Thursday of each month at 12pm PT / 3pm ET for the first 6 months. These tailored workshops, webinars, and networking events will be curated to enhance skills.
- Develop a personal work plan for their project at the beginning of fellowship, and meet with coordinators monthly for one-on-one support
- Dedicate an average of 5 hours per week to their project, totaling approximately 200 hours over the fellowship year
- Work on and make significant progress toward the completion of their project during the fellowship
- Share project updates and feedback at the 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year periods. VOW will amplify fellows’ work publicly at the 6-month mark and one-year mark.
- At the end of the first year, present their project at a public virtual and/or in-person event hosted by Voice of Witness
The requirements for fellows who continue to the second year of funding will be determined at the conclusion of the first year.
The application for the Storyteller Initiative is a Google Form and includes short-form answers, names and contact information for 2 references, and a sample from your work in progress. We estimate it will take up to 2 hours to complete.
Applicants will be notified in January 2025. Three to four finalists will be invited to a 30 minute interview with VOW, then two to three fellows will be selected.
No, there is no fee to apply nor will any be requested at any time for those accepted into the cohort.
The fellowship begins on March 3, 2025.
Fellows will receive a $10k stipend for each year of participation in the fellowship.
Yes. If you are applying with a co-lead, you should both fill out applications with the same project details and note this is a collaborative project. The $10k stipend will be split between co-leads.
Two to three (2–3) cohort members will be accepted into the 2025–2026 program.
No. Your project does not need to be tied to your identity. However, the project’s themes must either address societal, cultural, ecological, or social injustice issues that are of immediate concern to your community or people you are in community with. We hope the fellowship provides an opportunity to include stories of joy and self-determination as well.
This program is open primarily to those who reside in various regions in the so-called US. However, applicants doing work internationally or transnationally can also apply. We will do our best to work with your schedule; however, we do have a fixed calendar of required events. We try to consider Pacific and Eastern time zones when planning events. While we want to make the program as accessible as possible for all applicants, the VOW team resides in the US, and our event hours reflect this.
No, at the moment, we do not have the capacity to accept a work sample in languages other than English. Fellowship activities and community events will be primarily in English.
For text submissions: 10 pages max (about 2,500 – 3000 words), 12-point font, double spaced
For audio, video or multimedia submissions: 1–2 page description and/or script, and a sample of the work in whatever format you will work in during the fellowship. (Please note we highly recommend sending images and text or only text if available for graphic narratives. Imagery alone does not provide us the full scope of your project.)
If you do not have previous work to submit as a work sample, please submit an extended outline of the project you wish to complete during the fellowship year.
In the future, we hope to be able to provide fellowship funding plus compensation for narrators and/or project supplies. However, for our inaugural cohort, fellows will need to budget the financial support received from the Storyteller Initiative fellowship according to their needs and goals.
Based on the number of applications received, we are not able to provide individual feedback. We do invite those who are not selected this year to stay in community with VOW and apply again.
