The AFA is proud to announce our new Community Connectors!
The last intake of applications saw a number of qualified and passionate art community members nominated to represent their cultural, regional, or disability community. After a strong competition our panel selected new Community Connectors.
Cecilia Alcaraz (Calgary), and Robert & Jessica Tyndale will be bridging the gap between the AFA and their respective communities.
Cecilia Alcaraz
Cecilia Alcaraz, also known by her writer pseudonym, Cecilia Ortiz Luna, is an emerging (and late blooming) writer, community organizer, educator, and art impresario in Calgary. She plays either a leadership or active member role in various artist groups in Calgary’s Filipino, BIPOC and writer communities.
As an Executive Director of Salingpusa Creatives, a Filipino arts and culture non-profit organization, she leads her team in organizing art exhibits, artist festivals, roundtables and micro art events that seek to reconnect members of the Filipino diasporic community to their ancestral heritage. A kinetic presence in the BIPOC arts community, she holds a monthly Diverse Voices Roundtable for Alexandra Writers Centre and has recently staged Eight Voices: Eight Writers from Eight Ethnicities Reading Eight Minutes of Their Poetry/Prose.
In her personal art making, she writes flash fiction, short stories and poetry but is primarily a novelist. Her novel Blood Compact, a stylistic retelling of Philippine colonial history, was a finalist in both the 2025 Jim Wong Chu Emerging Writer Award and the 2025 Crime Writers Canada Unpublished Manuscript Award. The writing endeavor that gives her the most joy has been teaching the craft of fiction to baby writers (ages 11 to 18) at YouthWrite Summer Camp in Bragg Creek, AB.
When not in the throes of organizing or writing, she could be found reading the latest Tana French and Kevin Wilson novels, walking a rescue Samoyed dog named Yuzu, and playing Boggle with her husband and grown-up kids. She is still trying to master the art of parallel parking and has negative opinions about AI.
What you will need to provide
To apply for the role, please submit:
- A bio - tell us about yourself
- Tell us about your community
- A project proposal that includes:
- A description of your ideal audience and the local arts networks you are connected to.
- A detailed strategy for engaging your community to promote AFA programs.
- A Networking/engagement event concept/design:
- This should outline your vision for a community event that introduces local artists to the AFA, with AFA staff and/or board members in attendance.
- A communications/marketing plan:
- Include the communication channels you use, your following, and examples of the type of content you intend to create and share.
- An estimated budget for event-related costs (up to $5,000).
- Include details on potential event rentals, invitations, promotional materials, etc.
Please submit these materials by July 2, 2025, to be considered. Materials should total 10 or less pages.
Program details
Selected Community Connectors will receive:
- Compensation: $2,500 for the term
- Event and promotion costs: Up to $5,000 will be available for approved expenses related to organizing your networking event (such as venue rentals, invitations, and