Investing in cultural vitality: Northampton Arts Council grant supports local writer’s growth

By Carolyn Brown
For the Valley Advocate

The Valley offers many opportunities for artists — but as one local writer knows, stepping outside the area can help, too. Northampton writer, teaching artist and graduate instructor Richie Wills was recently selected as a recipient of the Northampton Arts Council’s BJ Goodwin Fund. The grant awards money to local creatives on a reimbursement basis, making it possible for them to travel outside the Valley for professional opportunities.

Wills, the reviews editor at The Massachusetts Review and a Point Foundation Scholar, received praise from Brian Foote, Northampton’s director of arts and culture.

“We are thrilled to support Richie’s development as a writer through this grant,” Foote said in a statement. “Investing in the professional growth of our local artists is essential to maintaining the long-term cultural vitality of Northampton.”

Richie Wills, writer and MFA candidate in prose at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, at Childs Park in Northampton, Friday, April 24, 2026. The Northampton Arts Council selected Wills as a recipient of the BJ Goodwin Fund. DANIEL JACOBI II / Staff Photo

The fund honors the late dancer, performer and educator BJ Goodwin. Past recipients include bands like And The Kids, Sun Parade and Lux Deluxe, who used the funding to attend SXSW Music Festival & Conference in Austin, Texas; muralist Justin Norris, who used the funding to take part in an artist-in-residence program in Chemnitz, Germany; and musician Lucas Solórzano, who volunteered as a music teacher at the Bachata Academy of The DREAM Project, a nonprofit in Cabarete, Dominican Republic.

Wills’ partner, musician Indë Francis, is a member of the Arts Council but was not involved in the selection. Wills applied for and received the funding from Foote before Francis was even aware he had applied.

Wills will apply his $750 grant toward his remaining tuition for the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Summer Writers’ Conference, for which he already won a Poet & Author Fellowship, which covers part of his conference tuition. There, he plans to refine “Akata Boy,” the novel-length thesis he recently defended for his Master’s of Fine Arts program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“I had been really anxious and nervous about not being able to afford to attend the writing conference in Martha’s Vineyard, so I was full of gratitude that I was able to receive support,” Wills said. “It felt really great.”

The conference features seminars where participants can make new work, manuscript review sessions, readings, panel discussions and other programming to help up-and-coming writers develop their work and their skills. As Wills put it, his participation in the conference is “meant to pour — both pour into me and also pour into the project.”

“It’s wonderful to be around other writers who take their work very seriously, and to be in a literary space is always an amazing opportunity for any writer, particularly for me,” Wills said.

“Akata Boy” is a coming-of-age story about a character moving between Nigeria — Wills’ home country — and the United States. It explores exile, family structures and the intersection of queer and migrant identities.

Investing in cultural vitality: Northampton Arts Council grant supports local writer’s growth

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