Phil Ochs Fellowship Grant

The Phil Ochs Fellowship, offered by the Woody Guthrie Center, supports innovative research on Phil Ochs's life and impact in music and culture. With funding up to $5,000, applicants can explore various mediums, including written works, films, and educational projects. Research must occur at the Woody Guthrie Center Archives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and be completed within three years. Previous applicants are encouraged to reapply, promoting ongoing engagement with Ochs’s legacy.

The Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma is pleased to announce the call for proposals for the 2024 Phil Ochs Fellowship, a partnership between the Woody Guthrie Center Archives and A Still Small Voice Inc. This research fellowship awards up to $5,000 for creative, educational, or scholarly projects about the life and work of Phil Ochs and his lasting legacy and influence on popular culture, politics and music.
The Woody Guthrie Center is home to the Phil Ochs Archives, donated in Sept. 2014 by Ochs’s daughter, Meegan Lee Ochs. The collection includes a rich array of original lyrics, handwritten travel journals and notebooks, personal belongings, photographs, and sound and moving image recordings. Additionally, Phil Ochs’s siblings, Michael Ochs and Sonny Ochs, donated additional Phil Ochs–related collections to the Woody Guthrie Center in 2015 and 2018, respectively. Together, these collections comprise more than 80 linear feet of archival materials related to the life of the folk singer and topical songwriter.
The Phil Ochs Fellowship is intended to support in-person research in the Phil Ochs Archives and related archives at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Research must be completed within one calendar year of the award date, and projects must be published, produced, or otherwise completed within three years of the award date.
Fellowship Award Requirements
Research must be undertaken in person at the Woody Guthrie Center archives and completed within the following calendar year after the date the fellowship is awarded.
Projects must be completed (published or produced and distributed) within three years of the award date.
Awardees will agree to participate in an in-person interview to speak about their project and their time in the archives.
Awardees will deliver regular updates on their projects through email and will provide the Woody Guthrie Archives/American Song Archives a copy/copies of the final product.

Eligibility

Fellowship funding may be divided among more than one applicant.Researchers are responsible for all permissions, licensing, and fees from the copyright holders of the materials.  Projects may include:  Published writing: Article in a scholarly journal or trade publication, book project (under contract), book chapter (under contract)
Film and video: Documentary film project, television program or series, etc.
Audio projects: Radio and podcast programs or series
Exhibitions, dramatic productions, or other public-facing projects: Venues, programs, and dates to be included in proposal
Educational projects: Classroom curriculum or other educational activities and programs
Other: Other original research or creative projects will be considered