Twice a year, CAA awards grants through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund to support book-length scholarly manuscripts in the history of art, visual studies, and related subjects that have been accepted by a publisher on their merits, but cannot be published in the most desirable form without a subsidy. Thanks to the generous bequest of the late Prof. Millard Meiss, CAA began awarding these publishing grants in 1975.
Books eligible for a Meiss grant must currently be under contract with a publisher and be on a subject in the arts or art history. The deadlines for the receipt of applications are March 15 and September 15 of each year. Please review the Application Guidelines and the Application Process, Schedule, and Checklist for complete instructions.
Criteria
In general, the purpose of the grant is to support presses in the publication of projects of the highest scholarly and intellectual merit that may not generate adequate financial return. The jury is particularly sympathetic to applications that propose enhancing the visual component of the study through the inclusion of color plates or an expanded component of black-and-white illustrations. Expenses generated by exceptional design requirements (maps, line drawings, charts, and tables) are also suitable for consideration. Permission and rental fees/reproduction rights, especially in cases where they are burdensome, are also appropriate.
Reader’s Reports
Reader’s reports should be anonymous to the author but signed and dated for the benefit of the jury (to be kept confidential), and they should not be more than three years old. The reports must be substantive, analytical evaluations of the complete manuscript. Mere endorsements are not acceptable. The author’s response to the reports should be included with the application so that the current state of the manuscript is made clear. The Meiss Jury does not admit reports written by the author’s dissertation adviser or other interested parties, such as a series editor. Note that reader’s reports are a significant and influential element of the grant application.
Eligible Applicants
Awards are open to publishers of all nations. Commercial, university, and museum presses are all eligible. Applicant authors and presses must be institutional CAA members. University presses can be eligible under the CAA membership of the university. Self-published manuscripts are not eligible for this grant. While all periods and all areas of art history and visual studies may be considered, eligibility does not embrace excavation or other technical reports, articles, previously published works (including collections of previously published essays), or congress proceedings. Within a calendar year, a press may submit the same manuscript for a Meiss Grant and a Wyeth Grant, but a book that wins one CAA publishing grant is ineligible to receive another CAA-administered grant and will be removed from consideration for the other grant. A project that has been rejected for a grant may not be resubmitted to the same grant, except in a rare case where substantial revision has been made to the material, and the publisher has so noted in the application. At its discretion, the jury may decline to review the resubmitted application. Publishers are encouraged to submit no more than two or three books for consideration in any one grant period, except in extraordinary circumstances.
Schedule
The jury meets to consider awards twice annually, in the spring and fall. To be considered at the spring meeting, completed applications must be received at the CAA office no later than March 15. To be considered at the fall meeting, applications must be received no later than September 15.
Preparing the Budget
When preparing the budget, the publisher should be as specific as possible about costs and the use to which grant monies will be put as the jury carefully considers financial information when making an award. The grant sum is intended to be less than the total cost of production; that is, a substantial portion of production costs must be met by the publisher or be from other sources. The overhead costs of a parent organization, such as a university or office of a university, may not be included in the budget, and Millard Meiss Publication Fund monies may not be used for such costs. Award amounts are determined by the jury.
Process
Schedule
Deadlines for grant applications to be received at the CAA office: March 15 and September 15. Awards are made in May and November, and publishers receive notification of awards within four to six weeks.
Checklist
The publisher submits all components as follows as separate PDF email attachments or on 8½ x 11-inch paper (printed on one side only without staples):
- Form A, completed by publisher
- A detailed budget (requested in Part A). The jury carefully considers financial information when making an award
- Publisher’s cover letter
The publisher or editor’s cover letter should describe the importance of the work, detail for what purpose(s) the grant is needed, and articulate how this project meets the criteria of the grant. It is also helpful for the letter to place the book in the context of the publisher’s program or plans, since the award supports the press, not the author. The cover letter should also include the amount of grant requested. - Partial manuscript, including:
- Table of contents
- Introduction and one or two sample chapters
- Picture list or illustration program
- Sample images (include figure numbers and captions) and a description of the illustration program (if any)
- Sample bibliography (five pages minimum; a full bibliography is preferred)
- Manuscript reviews: Two or more substantive, analytical peer reviews or readers’ reports of the manuscript, addressing originality, significance of the scholarly contribution, and quality of the research and prose, and written by reviewers who are authorities on the material of the book. Note that readers’ reports are a significant and influential element of the grant application. Reviews are anonymous to the author but should be signed and dated for the benefit of the jury (to be kept confidential) and should not be more than three years old. The author’s response to the reports should be signed and included with the application, so that the current state of the manuscript is made clear. If the author’s response is older than one year, a state-of-progress report should be included. Reports written by the author’s dissertation adviser or other interested parties, such as a series editor, are ineligible for application to this award.
- All materials prepared by author, as listed below
Prepared by the author and forwarded to the publisher:
- Form B, completed by author
- Author’s curriculum vitae (include dates of degrees and page numbers of published articles)
- Narrative description or abstract of the manuscript (two pages maximum)
- Author's response to the (anonymous) readers’ reports (dated, with state-of-progress report if older than one year)
For more information please click "Further Official Information" below.
This opportunity has expired. It was originally published here:
http://www.collegeart.org/meiss/