Wyoming Arts Council

Now Accepting Applications for the 2025 Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing and Journalism Fellowship

Featured News, Fellowships | September 5, 2024

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The Wyoming Arts Council is now accepting applications for the 2025 Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing and Journalism Fellowship. 

The Wyoming Arts Council is now accepting applications for the 2025 Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing and Journalism Fellowship. 

This annual prestigious fellowship of $3,500 is a national call open to creative writers (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) and journalists (writer, photojournalist, videographer, documentary filmmaker, online or print media) who demonstrate serious inquiry and dedication to the Greater Yellowstone region through their work. This fellowship seeks to intersect science, education, current events, and conservation to effectively communicate the Greater Yellowstone’s natural history and singular importance to society through creative and exceptional writing and subject communication.

Applications are accepted online via Submittable at https://wyomingartscouncil.submittable.com/submit. The application deadline is November 1, 2024. Established and recognized authors are being sought, but emerging and mid-career writers are also encouraged to apply. Wyoming state residency is not required. 

The fellowship recipient will be expected to create or complete a relevant publishable or produced work and may be requested or encouraged to make public presentations. In addition to the financial award, the fellowship recipient may elect to also receive a one week housing residency at one of several prearranged different locations within the Greater Yellowstone region. Such residency will be based on availability and will be negotiated with the fellowship recipient. 

The jurors for this year’s fellowship are Kelsey K. Sather and Jim Robbins.

Kelsey K. Sather was born and raised in Montana. She’s the author of “Birth of the Anima” and is a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award for fantasy. Her stories, both real and imagined, explore the complexities of human-nature relations. She attended the University of Utah on fellowship and graduated with an MA in Environmental Humanities. The second book in her series, “Ancient Language of the Earth,” is forthcoming in the fall of 2025. When she isn’t writing, she directs the Biocene Foundation, providing grants for the individuals and organizations enacting solutions to the ecological crisis and sharing their stories of joy and perseverance. At the core of her vocation as a creator and conservationist is the hopeful intention to help people live with deeper connections to self, nature, and each other.

Jim Robbins has lived in Montana since 1977. He has written for the New York Times for more than 40 years, on a wide range of topics, but with a special focus on science and environmental issues. He is also a frequent contributor to E360, a Yale Forestry School environmental journalism website and has written for Audubon, Conde Nast Traveler, Smithsonian, Scientific American, Vanity Fair, The London Sunday Times, Conservation and numerous other magazines. He has covered environmental stories across the US and in far flung places around the world, including Mongolia, Australia, Mexico, Chile, Peru, the Yanomami Territory of Brazil, Norway, Sweden and other countries. In 2023 he was one of five ‘distinguished humanists’ awarded the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award.

This Fellowship is made possible with generous funding from The Pattie and Earle Layser Memorial Fund. In late 2021, The Pattie and Earle Layser Memorial Fund endowed this fellowship with the Wyoming Arts Council, ensuring funding this opportunity for years to come.

A complete list of eligibility requirements and additional information can be found on Submittable at https://wyomingartscouncil.submittable.com/submit.

For more information, contact Kimberly Mittelstadt at kimberly.mittelstadt@wyo.gov or 307-274-6673.

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