The Wyoming Arts Council and Wyoming Humanities are seeking tracks and podcasts from Wyoming-based musicians and podcasters for the 2024 Summer Road Trip Playlist. The Road Trip Playlist is an annual release hosted on Spotify and promoted at high tourism areas across the state, such as at State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails, museums, and festivals. In addition to the promotion of the playlist, artists will receive featured pieces on their music through Wyoming Arts Council media channels and additional podcast promotion through Wyoming Humanities.
 

This is a statewide call open to independent musicians of all genres and producers of compelling storytelling podcasts. To apply for consideration, please complete the interest form below by April 30, 2024. There is no limit to the number of songs selected for the playlist. 

Songs will be juried by Patrick Lokken. Patrick is a concert promoter, sound engineer, and DJ from Bozeman, MT who does sound around southwest Montana, and  promotes concerts at The Filling Station. Pat has a passion for helping new artists get started and find their audience using digital marketing, radio, live performances and video. In addition to promoting concerts at the Filling Station, Pat produces the KGVM Spotlight. Simulcast live on 95.9FM and on Youtube, the show features a mix of local, touring, experienced and new bands in a studio setting that allows them to showcase the music they have created. He also worked with Nugs.net to produce live concert video streams featuring John Mayer, Bob Weir, The Disco Biscuits and Umphrey’s McGee. Pat holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Montana State University. Songs will be juried based on the merit of the song and the quality of the recording. 

Podcasts will be juried by Emy Digrappa. Emy is Executive Producer for What's Your Why? and Winds of Change podcasts for the Wyoming Humanities. Emy has several years' experience interviewing, documenting and sharing people's inspiring stories through podcast production, editing and marketing. She has been a marketing professional for over 25 years and produces many Wyoming Humanities programs in the Center for the Arts in Jackson Hole.

The Road Trip Playlist is an annual part of the Arts Council’s Wyoming Independent Music Initiative (WIMI), working to build a robust music scene in Wyoming. Through partnership with Wyoming Humanities, we hope to share the thriving arts and culture of Wyoming with our own residents and those visiting our beautiful state.
 

DETAILS

• Individual musicians and podcasters must be Wyoming residents;  the majority of the members of bands/musical acts must be Wyoming residents (Residency defined as domiciled within the state borders for a total of 20 months in the previous two years.).
• The following will be taken into consideration in the jurying process: artistic merit and quality of the recording.
• Artists will need to submit through the Wyoming Arts Council's Submittable page no later than Wednesday, April 30, 2024 at 11:59 pm MST.
• You must submit links to specific songs and podcasts already listed on Spotify.
• Links to an album or general artist page on Spotify will not be reviewed.
• Links to anything other than a specific song or podcast on Spotify will not be reviewed, except in the case of forthcoming albums, EPs, or singles. We will accept a link to an embargoed recording on the understanding that the song will be available to the public on Spotify no later than June 2, 2024.
• You may submit up to two songs or podcasts for consideration.
• If your music was previously listed on a Wyoming Road Trip Playlist, you are welcome to apply again this year, but songs previously listed as a part of a Wyoming Road Trip Playlist will not be considered.

Native Art Fellowships are unrestricted $5,000 awards of merit, based on the artist’s portfolio, honoring the work of contemporary Native American artists at any stage of their career who live in Wyoming. This fellowship supports diverse creative disciplines and artists working in any medium including, but not limited to, visual, performing, literature, multidisciplinary, film and video, or folk and traditional, may apply. Applications are juried by noted Native artists from outside the state. Two fellowships will be given this year and jurors may also select honorable mentions. The deadline to apply is May 15, 2024. 

ELIGIBILITY
 

• Applicants must be an enrolled/citizen member or lineal descendant of a federally recognized tribe, a state recognized tribe, or be an Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian. If selected for the fellowship, you may be asked to provide a copy of a Tribal ID, letter of descendancy, or Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB). If your tribe is not federally or state recognized you will be asked to provide more detailed information.
• Must be at least 18 years of age at time of application.
• Must not be a full-time student pursuing high school, college, or university art-related degrees.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or have legal resident status (evidence of U.S. citizenship, resident status and state residency may be required).
• May not be affiliated with the Wyoming Arts Council either as a board member or staff member, including their families, whether full-time, part-time or contractual.
• May not be an employee of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources.
• Must be a Wyoming resident, living in the state for at least 10 months of the year.
• May receive a total of two fellowship awards in your lifetime.
• You may choose to be automatically considered for the WAC fellowships in Creative Writing, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts, but you can only receive one Fellowship per year. 
• You may enter the competition only once by the deadline.

WHAT IF YOU WIN AN AWARD?
 

• You’ll receive $5,000 up front.
• You’ll sign a contract that verifies you’re eligible to receive this award.
• You’ll need to supply a bio and a photograph for publicity.
• The Arts Council will work with you to find an appropriate venue or showcase to publicly share your work.
• You will retain all rights to this work and the work you produce during the grant period.
• You must create an impact statement, due August 31, 2025, sharing how this award helped you and what you accomplished during the year you received it.
• You may be asked to provide a copy of a Tribal ID, letter of descendancy, or Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB). If your tribe is not federally or state recognized you will be asked to provide more detailed information.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
 

• Your name must not appear anywhere on your application. 
• Do not send supplementary materials (letters, resumes, etc.)
• You may submit up to 10 work samples. Samples can be a combination of multiple art forms. Image, video, audio, and document files will be accepted.
• If submitting a writing sample, you may only upload ONE manuscript, up to 25 pages in length, typed, double-spaced using a 12-point standard font. If submitting poetry, only one poem is allowed per page and the double-spaced requirement is waived. For a book excerpt, you may provide a synopsis, but it will be included in the 25-page limit. You may submit more than one piece of writing, as long as you don’t exceed the 25-page limit. Pages must be numbered; include title of work and page number on each page.
• If submitting performance-based work, you may submit original works or performances of other works (not original). Fellowships are awarded to an individual; however work samples of group performances will be accepted for demonstrative purposes as long as the individual applicant is clearly identified in the description.
• Other work samples can include: experimental (conceptual/new media), graphic (printmaking/book arts), painting, sculpture, installation, photography (includes experimental, color, black & white, photocopy and computer), clay, fiber, glass, leather, metal, paper, plastic, wood, mixed media, film or video, beadwork, quillwork, regalia, ledger art, other traditional forms. Up to two images may be detail images, if appropriate. Jurors will only be required to watch up to 10 minutes of a film/video submission.

JURORS

Ben Pease (b.1989) is a native Montanan artist of Tsitsistas and Apsáalooke descent. He is Newly-Made Lodge clan from the Valley of the Chiefs District on the Crow Indian Reservation. His educational background includes studies at Minot State University, Montana State University, and Little Big Horn College. Pease uses his work to seek understanding and perspective as an Indigenous person, as reflected in his diverse projects and collaborations. His work has been featured in major exhibitions at museums such as the Field Museum of Chicago and the New York Historical Society. His works have been collected worldwide and are represented in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Whitney Western Art Museum and the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Montana State University, and the Mulvane Art Museum.

Dakota Hoska (Oglála Lakȟóta Nation, Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee) serves as the Associate Curator of Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum where she has been employed since 2019. Previously, she served as a Curatorial Research Assistant at the Minneapolis Institute of Art supporting the ground-breaking exhibition "Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists.” Hoska completed her MA in Art History, focusing on Native American Art History, at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN (2019). She also completed two years of Dakhóta language at the University of Minnesota (2016) and received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (2012). Dakota has participated in multiple curatorial programs such as the EPIC international curatorial exchange program sponsored by the Association of Art Museum Curators, the Otsego Summer Seminar sponsored by the Fenimore Art Museum, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Native American Museum Fellowship at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the American Indian Museum Fellowship at the Minnesota Historical Society. She currently serves on multiple national advisory councils and frequently writes about and presents on issues related to curating Native North American art collections.

WHAT IS A CREATIVE WRITING FELLOWSHIP?

Creative Writing fellowships are awards of merit, based on a writer’s body of work, and honoring Wyoming’s literary artists whose work reflects serious and exceptional writing. One fellowship will be awarded in each category of Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Fiction, for a total of three fellowships. Applications are juried by noted authors, literary agents, or writing professionals from outside the state. Jurors may award honorable mentions. Recipients of the Creative Writing fellowships will share their work at one of Wyoming's three literary conferences. The deadline to apply is June 10th, 2024.

ELIGIBILITY

• Must be at least 18 years of age at time of application.
• Must not be a full-time student pursuing high school, college, or university art-related degrees.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or have legal resident status (evidence of U.S. citizenship, resident status and state residency may be required).
• May not be affiliated with the Wyoming Arts Council either as a board member or staff member, including their families, whether full-time, part-time or contractual.
• May not be an employee of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources.
• Must have been domiciled within the state borders for a total of 20 months in the previous two years.
• Must remain a Wyoming resident for at least one year after award, living in the state for at least 10 months of the year.
• Applicants must register or update their information in the Wyoming Arts Council’s Artists & Venues Directory.
• Must not have received a Creative Writing fellowship within the last four years.
• May receive a total of two fellowship awards in your lifetime.
• You may not receive a Blanchan or Doubleday writing award in the same year as this award, but you may enter this competition if you were a previous Blanchan or Doubleday winner.
• You may enter the competition only once by the deadline.
• You may only enter the competition in one category (Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, Fiction).

 

WHAT IF YOU WIN AN AWARD?

• You’ll receive $5,000 up front.
• You will receive an honorarium/travel stipend, if applicable, to present your work at a fellowship reading at your choice of literary conference: the Casper College Literary Conference (November, 2023), Wyoming Writers Conference (June, 2024), or the Jackson Hole Writer's Conference (June, 2024).  
• You’ll sign a contract that verifies you’re eligible to receive this award.
• You’ll need to supply a resume, bio, and a photograph for publicity.
• The Arts Council will retain your manuscript for possible use in excerpts for promotional purposes and Arts Council publications (print and electronic).
• You will retain all rights to this work and the work you produce during the grant period.
• You must create an impact statement, due August 31, 2025, sharing how this award helped you and what you accomplished during the year you received it.

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (all categories)

• You may submit up to 25 pages of writing, typed, double-spaced using a 12-point standard font.
• If submitting poetry, only one poem is allowed per page and the double-spaced requirement is waived. We welcome longer poems of multiple pages, if applicable.
• For a book excerpt, you may provide a synopsis, but it will be included in the 25-page limit.
• You may submit more than one piece of writing, as long as you don’t exceed the 25-page limit.
• Writing may have been previously published, but don’t submit reprints.
• Work must have been created within the past 5 years.
• Pages must be numbered; include title of work and page number on each page.
• Your name must not appear anywhere on the manuscript.
• If you submit more than the allowable page limits, extra pages will be removed.
• Do not send supplementary materials (letters, resumes, etc.)
• All work must be combined into one document and uploaded.

 

JURORS
Poetry - Julie Carr is the author of 12 books of poetry and prose, including Climate, co-written with Lisa Olstein (Essay Press 2022), Real Life: An Installation (Omindawn 2018),Objects from a Borrowed Confession (Ahsahta 2017), and Someone Shot my Book (University of Michigan Press 2018). Earlier books include 100 Notes on Violence (Ahsahta 2010), RAG (Omnidawn, 2014), and Think Tank (Solid Objects 2015). With Jeffrey Robinson she is the co-editor of Active Romanticism (University of Alabama Press 2015). Her co-translation of Leslie Kaplan’s Excess-The Factory was published by Commune Editions in 2018. Mud, Blood, and Ghosts: Populism, Eugenics, and Spiritualism in the American West was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2023. The Underscore, a book of poems, is forthcoming from Omnidawn in 2024. Overflow, a trilogy, will be published sequentially over subsequent years.

Fiction - Vauhini Vara is the author of This is Salvaged, which was longlisted for the Story Prize and named a notable book of 2023 by Publisher’s Weekly, The New Yorker and others, and The Immortal King Rao, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was the winner of the Colorado Book Award. Her third book, an essay collection called Searches, will be published in 2025. That collection includes the essay “Ghosts,” which was anthologized in The Best American Essays 2022; Vara has adapted “Ghosts” into a play, “Ghost Variations,” selected for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’s Colorado New Play Summit in 2024. Vara is also a journalist, writing for Wired and others, and an editor, most recently at The New York Times Magazine. Vara’s fiction has been honored by the Canada Council for the Arts, the the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Yaddo and MacDowell. Her journalism has won honors from the Asian American Journalists Association, the South Asian Journalists Association, the International Center for Journalists, and the McGraw Center for Business Journalism. She teaches at Colorado State University as a 2023-24 Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Book Project. She is also the secretary of Periplus, a mentorship collective serving writers of color.

Creative Nonfiction - Erika Krouse is a writer of fiction and nonfiction, most recently Save Me, Stranger, which will be published by Flatiron Books in January of 2025. Her recent memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, is a New York Times Editors’ Choice and won the Edgar Award, the Colorado Book Award, and the Housatonic Book Award. Erika’s novel, Contenders, was a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her previous short story collection, Come Up and See Me Sometime, won the Paterson Fiction Award, was a New York Times Notable Book of the year, and is translated into six languages. Erika’s short fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire.com, Ploughshares, One Story, and elsewhere. Her stories have been shortlisted for Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and the Pushcart Prize. Erika went to middle school and high school in Japan, earned her B.A. from Grinnell College, and earned her masters degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she also taught creative writing classes. She teaches and mentors for the Lighthouse Book Project at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver and at the Regis Mile High MFA program. Erika is a winner of the Lighthouse Beacon Award for Teaching Excellence.

WHAT IS A PERFORMING ARTS FELLOWSHIP?

Performing Arts Fellowships are awards of merit that are given in honor of excellence in the artists' field. They are juried by noted professionals in the field based on appropriate media samples and artist statements. A total of 4 fellowships are to be awarded. 2 fellowships will be given in the category of Music and 2 fellowships will be awarded in the category of Theatre and Dance. Please see below for more information about the categories and submission guidelines. Artists may only apply in one category (Music -or- Theatre and Dance). The deadline to apply is June 10, 2024.

ELIGIBILITY (all categories)    

• Must be at least 18 years of age at time of application.
• Must not be a full-time student pursuing high school, college, or university art-related degrees.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or have legal resident status (evidence of U.S. citizenship, resident status and state residency may be required).
• May not be affiliated with the Wyoming Arts Council either as a board member or staff member, including their families, whether full-time, part-time or contractual.
• May not be an employee of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources.
• Must have been domiciled within the state borders for a total of 20 months in the previous two years.
• Must remain a Wyoming resident for at least one year after award, living in the state for at least 10 months of the year.
• Must not have received a Performing Arts fellowship within the last four years.
• May receive a total of two fellowship awards in your lifetime.
• You may enter the competition only once by the deadline.
• You may only enter the competition in one category (Music -or- Theatre and Dance).

 

WHAT IF YOU WIN AN AWARD?

• You’ll receive $5,000 up front.
• You’ll sign a contract that verifies you’re eligible to receive this award.
• You’ll need to supply a bio and a photograph for publicity.
• The Arts Council will work with you to find an appropriate venue or showcase to publicly share your work. 
• You will retain all rights to this work and the work you produce during the grant period.
• You must create an impact statement, due August 31, 2025, sharing how this award helped you and what you accomplished during the year you received it.
  
   

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Theatre and Dance)

Applicants may apply as either a creator or a performer. Dance or choreography (any style or genre), theatre or musical theatre works, technical theatre (lighting, set, or costume design), storytelling, and directing will be considered.

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Music) Applicants may apply as either a composer or a performer. Solo, chamber, or orchestra/large ensemble works for any combination of instruments and/or voice (including electronic and electro-acoustic works), and including independent musicians, singer-songwriters, Native American, folk, traditional, and world music will be considered.


SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (All)

• All applicants must register or update their information on the WY Arts Council’s Artists & Venues Directory.
• Jurying is done anonymously; application materials should not list your name.
• All applications must be submitted online through Submittable.
• All submissions must include:                                                                              
  • If available, reviews of your work
  • A maximum of 5 work samples that best demonstrate the applicant’s work must submitted in the correct format. Documents, images, audio, and video files will be accepted, or a combination thereof.                                                                                                                                             
    • Each work sample must include a written statement explaining your concept/choices/process for the works submitted as examples; This statement must also include context (i.e. did you compose/choreograph/direct the piece or are you performing the work?).
    • Those applying as either a composer or creator must submit original work created within the past 5 years.
    • Performances may be original works or performances of other works (not original) that were performed within the past 5 years. 
    • If performing in the work of another artist, you must credit the artist and indicate that permission has been granted.
    • Fellowships are awarded to an individual; however works samples of group performances will be accepted for demonstrative purposes as long as the individual applicant is clearly identified.

      
     

JURORS

Theatre and Dance 

Cecilia J. Pang, Ph.D.   is a Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she currently serves as the Associate Chair.  Born and raised in Hong Kong, and educated in Canada and America, Cecilia brings to her work an East-West fusion aesthetics. As a Theatre director, Pang has helmed over 60 productions ranging from Greek tragedy to American musicals to original work.  She is also a documentary filmmaker and has tackled issues as immigrant Peking opera artists, women scientists, motherhood vs artistry, domestic violence and Cantonese Opera in Hong Kong.   She has served as an Artistic Associate of the New York based Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Company for the last twenty years.  Presently, she is the Artistic Director of Insight Colab Theatre, an Asian American Theatre in Colorado.
 

Music   

Craig Hill is a performer, educator, and composer specializing in percussion. Past tours include the Broadway musical, Swing!, and premieres of the BBC Earth: in Concert productions. He was the featured soloist in 2013-14’s Tokyo production of Kitchen Beat. Through the GRAMMY Experience, the Billboard Media group, and a number of corporate Grand World Voyages, Craig has toured internationally and across the U.S. A few of the artists that he has performed with include Wayne Newton, Melissa Manchester, Anthony Cox, Nestor Torres, George Lewis and Zeitgeist, Judy Carmichael, Sugar Blue, Roddie Romero, Joel Mason, Paul Baker, Ian Finkel, Jeff Trachta, and Lovena Fox. The Craig Hill Presents: concert series features musicians and interdisciplinary artists with a focus on new works and improvisation. This includes a solo performance art video series focusing on characters and first- take improvisations.

Touring nationally with the Dallas Brass, chamber and orchestral repertoire is joined with percussion improvisation and acting. The tours also feature percussion masterclasses and lectures on chamber music. Further private and ensemble education projects focus on community outreach, music appreciation, and improvisation. Craig received the Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance from Youngstown State University in 2005, as a teaching assistant. Completing the Bachelor of Music in Education from Youngstown State University in 2003, he is licensed to teach in the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas.