Four Warren Wilson College writers win Guggenheim fellowships

Press release:

Four writers from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College are the recipients of 2017 Guggenheim Fellowships. For 13 of the last 15 years, writers from the program have captured at least one of the prestigious grants. Alumni and faculty last collected four in 2009 and three in 2005, 2008 and 2014, respectively. In all, 33 Warren Wilson College MFA writers have won Guggenheim Fellowships since 2002.

“This steady recognition from the Guggenheim Foundation attests to two attributes of the program: the outstanding quality of our faculty and our students, and the effectiveness of our teaching,” said Debra Allbery, director of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

MFA program faculty member Jennifer Grotz, who is also a tenured professor at the University of Rochester, is a 2017 fellow. Three alumnae have also been honored: poet Victoria Chang, who graduated in 2005; fiction writer Samantha Hunt, a 1999 graduate; and fiction author Marisa Silver, a 1996 graduate who also joined the MFA faculty in January.

Ellen Bryant Voigt, who founded the MFA Program for Writers, became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1978. Even though alumni and faculty have won every major honor in the country, including MacArthur Fellowships, Pulitzer Prizes and the National Book Award, she says acclaim is not the goal.

“It’s hard even to keep the list updated, in terms of awards,” said Voigt. “However, we’re focused not on prizes but on the quality of the work and preparing students to have a life of writing.”

Nearly 3,000 fellowship applications were paired down to 173 winners this year, according to a release from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Poets accounted for 11 fellowships in 2017, and 9 recipients are fiction writers. Selected “on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise,” awardees receive grants to work with as “much creative freedom as possible.”

“What the Guggenheim does is it offers a stipend to ease your financial obligation during the time that you’re working on a project,” said Marisa Silver, who released the book “Little Nothing” in September 2016. “The main reason to go after it is to get a little support so you can find time. I think of it as the gift of time.”

Victoria Chang is not surprised by the number of fellowships granted to Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers alumni and faculty.

“Wilson is a hotbed. The people they bring through that program, particularly the faculty, are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life,” said Chang, who is publishing “Barbie Chang,” her fourth volume of poetry, in the fall. “The people who teach there are so impressive in terms of their intellect, their rigor and their love of poetry. They really are the best of the best.”

Silver is the author of six books, including The New York Times best-seller “Mary Coin” and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist “The God of War.” While she believes drawing a direct line between a Guggenheim and the MFA Program for Writers is difficult, she admits the statistics are “impressive.”

“I’m a big fan of the way that I was taught at Warren Wilson,” she said. “The learning that I got there has held me in incredibly good stead as I crafted my career. The fact that students have this deep conversation with a variety of writers as they are forming their voices is really special.”

Chang, a Holden Scholarship winner, believes her win is another step in the right direction for writers of color, particularly Asian-Americans.

“I’ve been looking at that list for decades, and there are so few Asian-Americans that have won this award,” Chang said. “This year, there are more people of color in general. For me, it’s such an honor to be selected. It goes beyond me, and that’s what I’m excited about – all the people in the future that could win because people like me could win it, too.”

Samantha Hunt teaches at the Pratt Institute in New York City. Her second novel, 2010’s “The Invention of Everything Else,” won the Bard Fiction Prize. Last year, she released “Mr. Splitfoot,” and her next release, “The Dark Dark: Stories,” is out in July. Faculty member Jennifer Grotz published her latest and fourth book of poetry, “Window Left Open,” in 2016. In 2015, she won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and released “Rochester Knockings,” which she translated from French.

“Our program is focused on helping each student realize his or her potential as a writer; that’s the real reward, not external validation,” Allbery said. “A focus on prizes and publication is divisive in the community; it’s not part of our agenda. We attract gifted students, and we provide them with a solid foundation in craft; recognition, such as the Guggenheim, naturally follows. We haven’t taught our students how to win prizes; we’ve taught them how to become the best writers they can be.”

Colorado Senator Simon Guggenheim created the fellowship program in 1925 to “add to the educational, literary, artistic, and scientific power of this country.” Since that time, more than $350 million has been given to 18,000 grant winners, according to the Foundation. The Guggenheim Fellowship supports “artists, scholars in the humanities and social sciences, and scientific researchers.”