Show Me The Money

I've lately been gearing up to try and find grants for travel to Boston, so I can do more research on the book. The National Italian-American foundation is one source I'm going to try, though they rejected me for a grad school scholarship a couple of years ago.
Another source is the Barbara Deming Foundation, though this foundation has no website and must be written to via snail mail. I'd really love to travel to Italy on the pretense of researching this book, but, to be honest, the book has many more scenes in Boston than Italy (there's about five pages that take place in Italy). Part of the book takes place in the San Fernando Valley and that is a lot easier to research--I'll probably be accompanying my partner down to Los Angeles this summer for various errands. The Valley has changed so much since I was a kid there--it used to be a wonderful place to grow up. The house I grew up in is still standing--hope to take some pictures of it, and of my Aunt Anna and Uncle Mike's house, too. In the meantime, I'll be working on getting funding to travel.
I'll get to Boston one way or another,even if it's by covered wagon! :)

I was recently reading Her Husband, by Diane Wood Middlebrook, which focuses on the marriage of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. At one point in their lives, when they bought their home, Court Green, they decided not to work in academia any longer and make their living as writers instead. I guess this was possible to do in the late '50s/early 60s. It was a fascinating, if tempestuous, marriage in which both writers managed to be productive, even with small children. I was a single mother for many years and I also found it highly admirable that Plath could continue to be productive even after she became responsible full-time for her young children--and remember that she was physically run-down and emotionally traumatized after her separation from Hughes. I've also been reading her journals and am fascinated by how devoted she was to sitting down and writing for a certain amount of time every day. At one point, she wrote "Oh, what a writer I shall flay myself into." Now, that's a bit extreme--I'm not into flaying myself, but I do need to push myself more.
If they gave Pulitzers for sloth, I would win.