Creative Writing Fellowships

 

Creative Writing Fellowships

Creative Writing fellowships are $3,000 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. Applications are currently closed. Check back in spring 2023 for the next round of applications.

Jurors

EJ Levy | Fiction

EJ Levy’s novel, The Cape Doctor (Little Brown, 2021), was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and one of Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of Summer 2021; editions are forthcoming in French, Spanish, and Italian. Her story collection, Love, In Theory, won a Flannery O’Connor Award and GLCA New Writers Award for Fiction and was published in French by Editions Rivages; Kirkus named it a Best Indie Book of 2013. Levy’s anthology, Tasting Life Twice: Literary Lesbian Fiction by New American Writers, won a Lambda Award. Her work has received many honors, including a Pushcart Prize, and has appeared in The Paris Review, Best American Essays, The New York Times, Orion, and twice been named among Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories. She is an Associate Professor in the MFA Program at Colorado State University.

Florence Williams | Creative Nonfiction

Florence Williams is a journalist, author, and podcaster. She is a contributing editor at Outside Magazine and a freelance writer for the New York Times, National Geographic, and others. She is the author of three books, including The Nature Fix and, most recently, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey, which was turned into a genre-bending enhanced audiobook in addition to print. 

 

Michelle Ortera | Poetry

Michelle Otero served as the Poet Laureate of Albuquerque from 2018-2020. She is the author of the essay collection Malinche’s Daughter, the poetry collection Bosque, and the forthcoming Vessels: A Memoir of Borders (FlowerSong Press, 2022). She is co-editor of 22 Poems and a Prayer for El Paso, a tribute to victims of the 2019 El Paso shooting and winner of a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award.

She is a member of Macondo Writer’s Workshop. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, on the Modern Love Podcast, NPR’s Code Switch, and in New Mexico Magazine, Shenandoah, and The Best of Brevity Anthology. She is a member of Macondo Writers Workshop. Originally from Deming, New Mexico, she holds a B.A. in History from Harvard College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College.

 

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 Memorial Writing Award, $1,000, is given annually for the best poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or script which is 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. Applications are currently closed. Applications for the next round will open in January 2023.

2022 Award Recipients

Hollie Sambrooks | Laramie | Frank Nelson Doubleday Award

Hollie Sambrooks moved to Wyoming in 2001 from the farmlands of Australia. She loves to travel and being in a new place often inspires her sporadic writing. Hollie writes down the things that haunt her and the things that she cannot bear to forget, and she finds that a touch of magical realism can be more truthful to the heart of a story than fact. She lives in Laramie with her husband and daughter.

 

Brandon McQuade | Gillette | Neltje Blanchan Award

Brandon McQuade is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick (BA) and Trinity College Dublin (M.Phil). He is the founding editor of

Duck Head Journal, an online, non-profit quarterly publication. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Dreich, Red Eft Review, 34 Orchard, Vita Brevis and Eunoia Review. McQuade’s debut chapbook, Bleeding Heart, was published by Kelsay Books (2021), and his debut collection, Mango Seed, was recently published by Scurfpea Publishing. He lives in Gillette, Wyoming with his wife and their children.

 

 

Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing and Journalism Fellowship

The Wyoming Arts Council, with generous funding from The Pattie and Earle Layser Memorial Fund announces the Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing and Journalism Fellowship. Open to writers and journalists, 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.

This annual prestigious fellowship of $3,500 will be awarded to a creative writer (poetry, fiction, nonfiction), or those in the field of journalism (writer, photojournalist, videographer, documentary filmmaker, online or print media) who demonstrate serious inquiry and dedication to the Greater Yellowstone region through their work. Established and recognized authors are being sought, but emerging and mid-career writers are also encouraged to apply. Applications are currently closed. Applications for the next round will open in January 2023.

2022 Award Recipient

Katie Christiansen | Evergreen, CO

Katie Shepherd Christiansen is an artist, naturalist, and conservationist. Katie is editor and illustrator of the book The Artist’s Field Guide to Yellowstone (2021), which she created in partnership with fifty local artists and writers. Since 2016, she has served as Artist-in-Residence at the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative (Jackson, WY). Her intricate wildlife portraits, nature writing, and hand-painted maps appear in books, galleries, journals, and on natural area interpretive resources across the Yellowstone region, including Bozeman’s Story Mill Community Park, Jackson’s Astoria Hot Springs Conservancy, and in Paradise Valley’s West Creek Ranch.

She is a two-time recipient of National Endowment for the Arts funding, and through her organization, Coyote Art & Ecology, has collaborated with various local, national, and international organizations including Trust for Public Land, City of Bozeman, Gallatin Watershed Council, Ucross Foundation, Jackson Hole Public Art, Astoria Park Conservancy, Teton Conservation District, the Town of Jackson, and National Geographic. Katie is a contributing columnist to Mountain Journal and illustrates books including the recently released Atlas of Conflict Resolution: A Montana Field-Guide to Sharing Ranching Landscapes with Wildlife by Dr. Hannah Jaicks. She holds a master’s degree from Yale’s School of the Environment, where she studied as a Wyss Conservation Scholar focusing her research on Yellowstone’s biophysical, cultural, and political contexts.

Katie’s knowledge of natural systems and sense for beauty lend to her artwork’s fine attention to detail. Katie’s work in conservation spans science, policy, management, communications, grassroots organizing, community building, outreach, and education. Her work is inspired by her time spent in nature across the intermountain West, her childhood in Northern Michigan, and her time now as the mother of two young children.

Katie’s newest endeavor, The Greater Yellowstone Seasonal Almanac, is a practical guide to help to reconnect local people to the land, to wild communities, and to each other by bringing to life the cyclical, concurrent happenings of our ecosystem in word and illustration. The project is supported by the Raynes Wildlife Fund (Jackson, WY) and the Layser Memorial Fund, administered by the Wyoming Arts Council.

Previous Creative Writing Fellowship Recipients

 

Previous Layser Fellowship Recipients

 

Previous Blanchan and Doubleday Award Recipients