Writer not rich enough for a bursary.
Note: This is essentially the same as a recent Twitter thread I’ve posted. I decided to blog about it too because not everyone uses Twitter and it’s easier to cross-post from here to places like FB. Also, because I am incensed.
Briefly, some background: I am the current Chair of the Milford SF Writers conference, an annual, week-long event for critique & discussion. We’ve run in the UK since 1972.
Since 2017, thanks to the generosity of individuals and two EasterCon committees, we have been able to offer bursaries to BAME writers around the world, and currently are funded for a few more. We’ve always been pleased to offer two bursaries a year.
To date, as well as UK writers, this has allowed SF&F writers from Nigeria, Netherlands, and USA to attend Milford. Not this year.
For 2019 we were again delighted to be able to fill both places. Except – annoyingly, frustratingly, infuriatingly, one must now fall vacant. Because UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) have rejected their visa application on the grounds of ‘financial capacity’.
One committee member is highly experienced in the problems the Hostile Environment policy causes musicians seeking visas, and has seen the refusal letter. It says there is no room for appeal, and in their experience it means exactly that. The writer we had been hoping to welcome to the UK says it is too heartbreaking a task to try again.
We’ve lost them. This is enormously disappointing. We are proud to be able to play our own part in increasing inclusion and diversity in our field of literature and the arts, immensely grateful to our donors. It is obvious that everyone benefits.
But this is where we now are with the poisonous Hostile Environment policy that Theresa May, our outgoing Prime Minister, introduced in her time as Home Secretary. It tells us low-income writers from other countries are not welcome, & we cannot help them with grants & gifts.
In short, this government thinks they are not rich enough to be given a bursary.
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