Everything about this grant sounds wonderful. The Older Writers Grant page at the Foundation's website looks wonderful. The ad the Foundation released a few days ago...no. This ad is getting a lot of attention on X, and not for the grant itself. What people are talking about is the bizarrely ageist and outdated image it uses.
What's the Problem?
First: The image plays into the stereotype that older people are:
- cute
- frail
- able to do their own shopping, but only small amounts at a time
- speculative literature
- writing
In this ad, the text describes the grant precisely. The image, however, is totally unrelated to the text. At best, it adds nothing to it at all. At worst, the image distracts from the text because viewers find it offensive or not to be taken seriously.
What Could They Have Done Differently?
Go to the Speculative Literature Foundation's Older Writers Grant page, and you will see a terrific image of a mature woman who looks healthy and fit and she is writing. Image of person writing...writing grant. If they had just used her on a professional photo type ad instead going for a cartoon and what looks like clipart, they would have had something fantastic to share.
They could also have looked for a photo of a group of older writers either from a writers' group (I see many of those on my Facebook page) or a writers' conference. They might have been able to find a group of writers that wasn't entirely white, too, which would have been a plus.
A Strange Turn Of Events
As I said earlier, the Speculative Literature Foundation has run this grant for two decades. This is the first I've heard of either the Foundation or the grant. So maybe there's no such thing as bad publicity?
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