Current Fellows
2008-09 Fellows
We are pleased to announce our new poetry and fiction fellows who will be joining us for the 2008-09 academic year. They are:
- Jill Osier, the
Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow
MFA, University of Alaska-Fairbanks. - Traci Brimhall, the
Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow
MFA, Sarah Lawrence University - Andrew Milward, the
James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow
MFA, University of Iowa - Stuart Nadler, the
Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow
MFA, University of Iowa - Amanda Rea, the
Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow
MFA, University of California-Irvine - Emma Straub, the Halls Emerging Artist Fellowship
for a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's MFA Program
The new Djerassi Distinguished Fellow in Playwriting is Michael Weller, who is best known for his plays Moonchildren and Loose Ends. He also wrote the screenplays for such films as Ragtime and Hair. Mr. Weller is one of the founders of the Cherry Lane Theatre's acclaimed Mentor Project, which pairs pre-eminent playwrights with emerging playwrights for a season-long mentorship. In 2005, the Broken Watch Theatre Company in New York named its performance space The Michael Weller Theatre "in honor of his tremendous accomplishments."
We also congratulate Samar Fitzgerald who received the 2008 Friends of Creative Writing Award. This new award was funded by a generous anonymous donor and provides $8,000 to a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's MFA program who has not yet published a creative book.
2007-08 Fellows
Our current 2007-08 Fiction and Poetry Fellows and our Spring 2008 Djerassi Distinguished Fellow in Playwriting are:
Danielle Deulen
Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow.
MFA: George Mason University
Kevin A. Gonzalez
Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow
MFA: The University of Iowa
Nick Lantz
Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow
MFA: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Shara Lessley
Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow
MFA: University of Maryland
Edward Porter
James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow
MFA: Warren Wilson College
Timothy Scott
Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow
MFA: New York University
Dan O'Brien
Carl Djerassi Distinguished Fellow in Playwriting
MFA: Brown University
Our inaugural Djerassi Distinguished Fellow in Playwriting Dan O'Brien has an MFA in Playwriting and Fiction from Brown University. His plays include The Voyage of the Carcass, The Dear Boy, Key West, Am Lit, Crazy Jane on God, An Irish Play, and Moving Pictures among others. His work has been staged at the So-Ho Playhouse, the Geva Theatre Center, the Pittsburgh Playhouse, The Humana Festival, and the Brown University Mainstage. In 2006-2007, he was a Hodder Fellow at Princeton, where he taught playwriting. He has also been a faculty member at the Sewanne Writers Conference. Dan has received awards and residencies from the New Harmony Project, Yaddo, the Sundance Theater Lab, and he has won the Osborn Award and the Mark Twain Comedy Playwriting Award. His fiction has appeared in the magazines StoryQuarterly, Quarterly West, and the Belleville Review among others and in the anthology 25 and Under.