Wyoming Arts Council

Creative Writing Fellowships and Awards

Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing and Journalism FellowshipNeltje Blanchan and Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Awards • Creative Writing Fellowship (Poetry) • Creative Writing Fellowship (Fiction) • Creative Writing Fellowship (Nonfiction)


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.

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. Established and recognized authors are being sought, but emerging and mid-career writers are also encouraged to apply.

2024 Application Window is Now Open

January 16 – March 15, 2024

Applications are accepted online via Submittable. The application deadline is March 15, 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.

Apply for the 2024 Layser Creative Writing and Journalism Fellowship Here

 

Bebe Crouse, Kelsey K. Sather (Sather’s photo by Blair Speed)

2024 Jurors: Bebe Crouse and Kelsey K. Sather

Bebe Crouse will serve as a juror for the second year in a row. Crouse spent more than 25 years as a working journalist before taking her position as Associate Director of Communications for The Nature Conservancy. Bebe spent a decade as Environment and Western Editor for NPR. She has reported and produced award-winning radio and television news stories and documentaries for national media networks including NPR, CBS, NBC, Wall Street Journal, BBC, and PBS. Her work has taken her across the United States, Europe, Mexico, Cuba, Kenya and Central America. She also spent time as a mountain and river guide and an environmental planner in Oregon and California. Her experience combined with her education in Environmental Science positions her well for her job with The Nature Conservancy where she continues to write about the things she values. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, hiking and floating in kayak or raft.

Kelsey K. Sather will join Bebe as juror this year. Sather was born and raised in Bozeman, Montana. She’s the author of “Birth of the Anima,” and is a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Award. 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. After teaching at the college level, Kelsey co-founded a writers’ collective, where she facilitated creative writing workshops for all ages. She’s worked with hundreds of writers on projects ranging from bestselling nonfiction to short stories and school papers. Today, she continues teaching at outdoor writing retreats while working on the second book in her eco-fantasy series, “Ancient Language of the Earth.” She is also an avid rock climber and coaches the Bozeman Climbing Team. At the core of her vocation as an author and teacher is the hopeful intention to help people live with deeper connections to self, nature, and each other.


 

Neltje Blanchan and Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Awards

The Frank Nelson Doubleday Award of $1,000 is given for the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script written by a woman writer. The Neltje Blanchan Award, also $1,000, is given annually for the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script informed by a relationship with the natural world.

Both awards are designed to bring attention to writers in Wyoming who have not yet received wide recognition for their work, and to support emerging writers at crucial times in their careers. Poets, fiction writers, essayists, and script writers who have published no more than one book in each genre and who are not full-time students or faculty members are invited to apply by submitting manuscripts and an entry form by the deadline.

The Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing Award and the Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Award are made possible through the generosity of a private donor.

2024 Application Window is Now Open

January 16 – March 15, 2024

Applications are accepted online via Submittable. The application deadline is March 15, 2024.

Apply for the 2024 Writing Awards Here

 

The 2024 Juror, Karen Auvinen

The juror for this year is Karen Auvinen. Karen is a poet, writer, mountain woman, outlier, and life-long westerner, and the author of the memoir Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living (Scribner), finalist for the Colorado Book Award and the Willa Award.

Her work has appeared in “The New York Times,” “LitHub,” “Real Simple,” “Westword,” as well as “High Desert Journal,” “Ascent Magazine,” “Cold Mountain Review,” and “The Columbia Review,” among others. Her fiction has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and her poetry has won two Academy of American Poets Awards.

She is on the Graduate Faculty in Nature Writing at Western Colorado University and also teaches at CU-Boulder and for Lighthouse Writers and Fishtrap Writes. Karen lives with her partner, the artist Greg Marquez, at 8600 feet within the Roosevelt National Forest with River the dog and Dottie the cat. Currently, she is working on an intergenerational novel based on the life of her Grand Aunt Nina who was institutionalized in 1933 at the age of 21 and also publishes a weekly Substack: “A Woman’s Place is in the Wild.” A collection of short stories about outliers in the American West, The Porn Star of Pine Creek, is forthcoming.


Creative Writing Fellowships

Poetry • Fiction • Nonfiction

Creative Writing fellowships are $5,000 unrestricted awards of merit, based on a writer’s body of work, and honoring Wyoming’s literary artists whose work reflects serious and exceptional writing. One fellowship is awarded in each category of Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Fiction, for a total of three fellowships. Applications are juried by noted authors, literary agents, or writing professionals from outside the state. Jurors may award honorable mentions.

Recipients of the Creative Writing fellowships share their work at one of the three Wyoming literary conferences.

2024 Fellowship Applications will open in April.


2023 Creative Writing Fiction Fellowship Recipient

Janna Urschel

Janna Urschel, Laramie: “Saltworks: a selection”

Janna Urschel is a sometime wedding harpist, dog musher, and linguist turned writer, teacher, and horse trainer. She lives in Laramie, Wyoming with a motley crew of horses, dogs, chickens, goats, and daughters. Janna teaches writing at Laramie County Community College and volunteers with Mountain Shadows Equine Revival, a local, nonprofit horse rescue.

Her work has appeared in Mamalode Magazine, Ladybug, Trolley, and “Stranged Writing,” a collection by The Gravity of the Thing. She was a finalist for the Montana Prize for Fiction, judged by Rick Bass, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and placed in the 2023 Wyoming Writers, Inc. contests for adults and young adults.

Visit Janna’s website here.

2023 Creative Writing Nonfiction Fellowship Recipient

Jennifer Kocher, Gillette: “In Search for Irene”

Jennifer Kocher

Jennifer Kocher is a freelance journalist living in northeast Wyoming. Originally from Ohio, she has lived out West for the past three decades and now calls Wyoming home. Jennifer has reported in Wyoming for more than a decade, and her byline has appeared in numerous regional publications and has won multiple state and national awards for her work. She’s also a ghostwriter and has completed four published books to date. Jennifer holds an undergraduate degree in journalism from Miami University in Ohio and master’s degrees in writing from the University of Colorado and University of Montana.

She’s currently at work on a first-person account involving her reporting of several missing person cases throughout the state, where she’s participated in ground searches and worked closely with private investigators and the families of the missing to help bring their loved ones home.

Outside of writing, Jennifer enjoys traveling, kayaking and walking and enjoying this beautiful state.

Read Jennifer’s articles here.

2023 Creative Writing Poetry Fellowship Recipient

Rod Miller, Cheyenne: “The Dog’s Pancake”

Rod MillerRod Miller was raised on his family’s cow outfit north of Rawlins, and graduated from Rawlins High School. He was the Outstanding Wrestler for the Outlaws in “68.

He has been variously a working cowboy, a staff member for two Wyoming governors, a bookseller, a real estate wheeler-dealer and is now retired in Cheyenne. Miller has four sons and three grandchildren.

Miller had the good fortune to study under Jo McFadden at Rawlins Junior High, Margaret Demorest at Casper College, and Tommy Thompson at the University of Northern Colorado.

His volume of Poetry, “The Dog’s Pancake”, was published by High Plains Press in 2023.

Read a review about “The Dog’s Pancake” here.


Previous Creative Writing Fellowship Recipients

2023: Jennifer Kocher, Gillette (Creative Nonfiction), Janna Urschel, Laramie (Fiction), Rod Miller, Cheyenne (Poetry)

2022: Kate Northrop, Laramie (Poetry), David Zoby, Casper (Creative Nonfiction), Francesca King, Laramie (Fiction)

2021: Lori Howe, Laramie (Poetry), Taylor Gordon, Laramie (Fiction), Tina Welling, Jackson (Creative Nonfiction)

2020: Betsy Bernfeld, Wilson (Poetry), Susan Marsh, Jackson (Fiction), Shreve Stockton, Ten Sleep (Creative Nonfiction)

2019: Jason Stenar Clark, Laramie (Poetry ) Chad Hanson, Casper (Creative Nonfiction) Erin Jones, Laramie (Fiction)

2018: David Romtvedt, Portland (Fiction); Kate O’Hara, Kansas (Creative Nonfiction); Catherine Reeves, Casper

2017: Cara Rodriguez, Casper (Poetry); Ben Wener, Cody (Fiction); Carly Fraysier, Clearmont (Creative Nonfiction)

2016: Stephen S. Lottridge, Jackson (Creative Nonfiction); Connie Wieneke, Wilson (Poetry);  Michael Sudmeier, Wilson (Fiction)

2015: Carol Deering, Riverton; Constance Brewer, Gillette; Kathleen Smith, Gillette

2014: Shawn Klomparens, Jackson; Estella Soto, Laramie

2013: Chad Hanson, Casper; Mary Beth Baptiste, Laramie; Heather Jensen, Cheyenne

2012: Claudia Mauro, Jackson; Matt Daly, Jackson; W. Dale Nelson, Laramie

2011: Kathy Bjornestad, Sundance; Samuel Western, Sheridan; Stefani Farris, Lander

2010: Joel Burdess, Casper; Jayme Feary, Jackson; and Pam Galbreath, Laramie

2009: Sam Renken, Laramie; Lori Van Pelt, Saratoga; and David Zoby, Casper

2008: Kevin Holdsworth, Green River; Doug Reitinger, Sheridan; and Valerie Pexton, Laramie

2007: John Sutton of Sheridan, John D. Nesbitt of Torrington, Chavawn Kelley of Laramie

2006: Jane Wohl, Sheridan; Myra L. Peak, Green River; and Jeffe Kennedy, Laramie

2005: John English, Casper; Alyson Hagy, Laramie; Geneen Marie Haugen, Kelly

2004: Heather LaVonne Jensen, Cheyenne; Laura Bell, Cody; and Vicki Lindner, Casper

2003: W. Dale Nelson, Laramie; Page Lambert, Sundance; and Michael Harkin, Laramie

2002: Diane Panozzo, Tie Siding; Ted Kerasote, Jackson; Ann McCutchan, Laramie; Connie Wieneke, Wilson

2001: Rodney Gene Mahaffey, Casper; Paisley Rekdal, Laramie; Chavawn Kelley, Laramie; Bo Moore, Green River

2000: Robert Druchniak, Evanston; Charles Levendosky, Casper; Stefani Farris, Laramie; Geoff Peterson, Green River

1999: Mark Spragg, Cody; Alyson Hagy, Laramie; Sam Western, Sheridan; Martha Clark Cummings, Thermopolis

1998: Carol Deering, Riverton; Christy Stillwell, Laramie; William Hoagland, Powell; Lisa Vice, Thermopolis

1997: Dainis Hazners, Story; Jon Billman, Kemmerer; Julia Hoagland, Powell; Maija Rhee Devine, Laramie

1996: Laura Bell, Shell; Bob McKee, Douglas; Diane LeBlanc, Laramie; David Romtvedt, Buffalo

1995: C.L. Rawlins, Laramie; Suzanne Tyler, Jackson; Jane Wohl, Sheridan; Ron Franscell, Gillette

1994: Janell Hanson, Laramie; Craig Johnson, Ucross; Marie J. Carvalho, Rock Springs; Stephanie Buehler, Sheridan

1993: Tim McGee, Worland; Hannah Hinchman, Dubois; Rodney Mahaffey, Casper; and Lawrence Sullenger, Story

1992: Leslie (Bridewell) McMillan, Rock Springs; Scott Hagel, Cody; Mark Jenkins, Laramie; Page Lambert, Sundance

1991: C.J. Box, Cheyenne; Len Edgerly, Casper; Dainis Hazners, Story; Julia Hoagland, Powell

1990: Vicki Lindner, Laramie; Michael Riley, Cody; Geoff O’Gara, Lander

1989: Rick Kempa, Rock Springs; Jennifer McMullin, Casper; Barbara Smith, Rock Springs; Dan Whipple, Casper

1988: B.J. Buckley, Arvada; David Mouat, Worland; Mark Spragg, Wapiti; Geoff Peterson; Green River

1987: Sandra Dorr; Story, Mark Jenkins; Laramie, John Nesbitt; Torrington, Tim Sandlin; Jackson

1986: Tilly Warnock; Laramie, Len Sherwin; Douglas, Kirk Keller; Moran, Mary Alice Gunderson; Casper

 

Previous Layser Fellowship Recipients

2023: Austin Kirchhoff, Bozeman, Montana; Honorable Mentions: Jeffrey Lockwood, Laramie; Gregory Nickerson, Laramie;  Julie Rubini of Toledo, Ohio

2022: Katie Christiansen, Evergreen, CO

2021: Hannah Habermann | Jackson, WY

2020: Sarah Keller | Bozeman, MT

2019: Melodie Edwards | Laramie, WY

 

Previous Blanchan and Doubleday Award Recipients

2023: Ann Stebner Steele, Laramie (Frank Nelson Doubleday Award); India Hayford, Casper (Neltje Blanchan Award)

  • Honorable Mentions – Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Award: Sarah Hamilton, Casper; Catherine Reeves, Cheyenne; Amy Hollon, Laramie
  • Honorable Mentions – Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing Award: Pamela Galbreath, Laramie; Callie Plaxco of Laramie; Kathleen Smith of Gillette

Since 1989, 50+ talented writers have received Blanchan/Doubleday awards:

Hollie Sambrooks, Brandon McQuade, Stefani Farris, Dakota Richardson, Linda Baker, sid sibo, Liberty Lausterer, Lyndi Waters, Jayme Feary, Erin Jones, Geoffrey O’Gara, Betsy Orient Bernfeld, Hannah Hinchman, David Mouat, Sheila Roberts, Scott Hagel, Holly Skinner, C.L. Rawlins, Marcia Saum, Dainis Hazners, Barbara Gilbert, William Hoagland, Diane LeBlanc, Tina Willis, Maija Rhee Devine, Mary Beth Baptiste, Julene Bair, Chavawn Kelley, Geneen Marie Haugen, Janell Hanson, Mark Spragg, Karol Griffin, Stefani Farris, Laura Bell, Darcy Lipp-Acord, Jack Clinton, Tina Welling, Susan Marsh, Myra L. Peak, Marcia Hensley, Jeffe Kennedy, Melodie Edwards, Bo Moore, Barbara Smith, Alisan Peters, Lou O. Madison, Christine B. Nelson, W. Dale Nelson, Nina S. McConigley, Patricia Frolander, Edith Cook, George Vlastos, Christine Fadden, Yvette Ward-Horner, Matt Daly and Marylee White.


Grant Information

Deadline: Varies
Amount: $3,000 and $1,000
Contact: Kimberly Mittelstadt

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