Fellowships For Writers

Three WNC artists receive $10000 fellowships from NC Arts Council

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Brevard creative nonfiction writer Fred Bahnson is preoccupied with the question “How does one live a holy, which is to say a whole, life?” Almost everything he knows about writing comes from two things: the act of writing itself, and other writers. His work has appeared in Christian Science Monitor, Orion, The Sun, Fugue, Pilgrimage, Christian Century and the anthologies Best American Spiritual Writing 2007 (Houghton Mifflin), Wendell Berry and Religion: Heaven’s Earthly Life (Univ. Press of Kentucky) and State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet (Worldwatch Institute). Black Mountain poet Landon Godfrey says it’s the spirit of the unknown that compels her to write: the leap into uncharted territory, the astonishment that can make for sorrow or joy, writing poems that she did not expect to write. Of her book of poetry Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Soufflé Chiffon Gown (Cider Press Review, 2011), David St. John, judge of the 2009 Cider Press Review Book Award, wrote, “Never has the sumptuous materiality of language felt more seductive … These exquisite poems are both sensually compelling and intellectually rigorous — a rare feat indeed.” Godfrey holds an M.F.A. in creative writing/poetry from the University of Houston. Asheville fiction writer Charles Dodd White paints a portrait of the Appalachian people by exposing their suffering, their triumphs and ultimately, their dignity. His books include The Sinners of Sanction County: Stories (Bottom Dog Press) which will be published later this year; Mabs of Men: A Novel (Casperian Books, 2010); and Degrees of Elevation: Stories of Contemporary Appalachia (Bottom Dog Press, 2010), which he co-edited with Page Seay. New York Times notable author Ron Rash has high praise for his work, saying, “Charles Dodd White is an exceptionally talented writer, and these stories secure his place as one of Appalachia’s best short story writers. He’s the real deal.

Fellowships For Writers - News

Three WNC artists receive $10000 fellowships from NC Arts Council

Almost everything he knows about writing comes from two things: the act of writing itself, and other writers. His work has appeared in Christian Science Monitor, Orion, The Sun, Fugue, Pilgrimage, Christian Century and the anthologies Best American

Annual Writers' Fellowship tilt opens

The center will award about 15 creative writing fellowships to the Cornelio Faigao Memorial Annual Writers Workshop every October. The Faigao workshop has started receiving entries last July 1. It runs until Aug. 30. Regular mail submissions must be

RI Foundation seeks applicants for musical composition fellowships

This year's fellowships are for musical competition; the foundation rotates the awards between composers, writers and visual artists on a three-year cycle. The money comes through the Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Fellowships,

The Nonprofit Loft Literary Center Removes Barriers for Writers with New ...

It offers Classes, workshops, and intensive mentorships with established, award-winning writers to inspire emerging writers toward their finest work and increasing levels of accomplishment. Loft fellowships and awards buy time for writers to focus on

Meredith Sue Willis: Ten Strategies to Write a Novel

Meredith Sue Willis has won many prizes for her writing, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She has participated in the Circuit Writers program of the West Virginia Humanities

Pallavi Sharma Dixit receives Beyond the Pure Fellowship for Writers

The 2011 Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers recipients include: Lesley Arimah (fiction); Colleen Casey (poetry); John Lee Clark (poetry); Pallavi Sharma Dixit (fiction); and Jacqueline White (creative nonfiction).

Pallavi Sharma Dixit earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts, where she was awarded the Harvey Swados Prize in Fiction. In 2010, she was the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant and a Travel and Study Grant from the Jerome Foundation, and in 2007 she was a recipient of the Loft’s Mentor Series Award.

Most recently, Dixit’s work has appeared in Fiction on a Stick: New Stories by Minnesota Writers and Her Mother’s Ashes 3: Stories from South Asian Women in Canada and the United States.

Lesley Arimah was born in the U.K. and resided in various countries (including her native Nigeria) before moving to the States in her early teens. She spent a decade in the South before moving northwards to earn an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato. A resident of Mankato, Lesley is currently working on her first novel.

Colleen Casey uses language and other arts to bring about positive transformation. As Morning Program Manager with the English Learning Center, in Minneapolis’s Phillips neighborhood, she leads a cadre of volunteer teachers to help adult immigrants build their voices in English and master other essential skills.

Casey has worked with Adult Basic Education and ESL in the Twin Cities for over a decade and, before that, cut her teeth in community arts administration and arts in education with the History Theatre and In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater. She holds a BA in art history and is slowly completing an initial teacher license in English Language and Communication Arts.

She was raised in the Twin Cities area and is of European-American and Mdewakantan Dakota heritages. She is a member of the Loft-sponsored TGI Frybread.community writing group and was a mentee in the Loft’s Native Inroads writing mentorship in 2009.

John Lee Clark was born deaf and became blind in adolescence. His chapbook of poems is Suddenly Slow (Handtype Press, 2008) and he edited the anthology Deaf American Poetry (Gallaudet University Press, 2009). His poems have appeared in many publications, including The Hollins Critic, Poetry, and The Seneca Review.