Warren Wilson College MFA founder receives MacArthur “genius” grant

Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers founder Ellen Bryant Voigt has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant, according to a press release from the college. The poet and chair of the academic board for the MFA program is one of twenty-four recipients of the grant for 2015.

“To have one’s work and life’s work recognized, it’s great,” says Voigt. “There is no downside that I have come across yet.”

The grants are given out each year by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to individuals who are “‘exception[ally] creative’ and have the capacity to contribute even more to their craft,” according to the press release.

In announcing this year’s winners, the MacArthur Foundation says of Voigt: “Through her mastery of line and rhythm, she celebrates the grandeur of the poetic form, while her imagery remains rooted in scenes of rural life and close observations of natural phenomena. … A poet of sustained excellence and emotional depth, Voigt continues to advance American literary culture through her ongoing experimentation with form and technique.”

Voigt is responsible for founding the low-residency MFA Program for Writers in 1976; the program later relocated to its current location at Warren Wilson College in 1981. In addition, she is the author of eight books of poetry and has been a Guggenheim, Lila-Wallace and National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in past years.

As a recipient of the grant, Voigt will receive $625,000 to provide “flexibility to pursue [her] own artistic, intellectual and professional activities” over the next five years. She joins fellow Warren Wilson MFA program faculty members Eleanor Wilner (1991), Andrea Barrett (2001) and Heather McHugh (2014) in receiving the award.

In addition to Voigt’s prize, MFA faculty member Maud Casey has been awarded the 2015 St. Francis College Literary Prize for her novel The Man Who Walked Away. Other accolades for members of the MFA Program include Lauren Groff‘s and T. Geronimo Johnson‘s inclusion on the longlist for the National Book Award in fiction, faculty member Jennifer Grotz‘s 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship award and Anthony Doerr‘s 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

“That’s been the thing that’s been very, very moving to me,” Voigt says. “People have written to congratulate me on the prize, but also then to tell me how important the [MFA Program for Writers] was to them and how it’s changed their lives.”

For more information on Ellen Bryant Voigt and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program For Writers, check out warren-wilson.edu or see the official press release below. To learn more about the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, visit macfound.org.

Press release:

Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers founder named a MacArthur “genius”
Ellen Bryant Voigt becomes fourth Warren Wilson College MFA faculty member recipient

Asheville, N.C. – Sept. 29, 2015 – Poet Ellen Bryant Voigt, Chair of the academic board and founder of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, is one of 24 2015 MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation announced Tuesday. The award, known as the “genius grant,” is given to people who are “exception[ally] creative” and have the capacity to contribute even more to their craft.

Upon being named a MacArthur Fellow, Voigt said, “To have one’s work and life’s work recognized, it’s great. There is no downside that I have come across yet.”

In making the announcement, the MacArthur Foundation calls Voigt a “[p]oet meditating on will and fate and the life cycles of the natural world through a distinctive intermingling of lyric and narrative modes and ongoing experimentation with form and technique.”

Voigt is the author of eight books of poetry and a Guggenheim, Lila-Wallace and National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. “I hope to make the most of [the award]. It helps not to feel pressured to do so,” she said. “To receive this as the truly extraordinary, miraculous gift that it is and to have the giver say there are no strings attached … that kind of faith is very buoying.”

The Foundation sums up Voigt’s contribution to the literary world: “Through her mastery of line and rhythm, she celebrates the grandeur of the poetic form, while her imagery remains rooted in scenes of rural life and close observations of natural phenomena. … A poet of sustained excellence and emotional depth, Voigt continues to advance American literary culture through her ongoing experimentation with form and technique.”

She created the low-residency MFA Program for Writers in 1976, which relocated to Warren Wilson College in 1981. The world-renowned MFA Program for Writers, the first of its kind in the country, is nearing its 35 anniversary at the College, and Voigt continues to teach and lead the academic board, which oversees its operation.

“Our MFA program has been and continues to be Ellen’s life work, alongside and inseparable from the brilliant achievement of her poetry,” said Debra Allbery, director of the MFA Program for Writers. “Both bear the stamp of her imaginative and exacting vision and her wholehearted dedication to the art of writing. We’re thrilled for our founder to receive this recognition and substantial support.”

As the second consecutive MFA Program for Writers faculty member to receive the MacArthur Fellowship, Voigt is in good company. Eleanor Wilner, a 1991 recipient, Andrea Barrett, a winner in 2001, and Heather McHugh, who received the award last year, are all teach in the program.

“This is such an important award, and it is time Ellen receive such a distinction,” said Paula Garrett, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College. “Her contribution to poetry and, what is more, to the writer’s life, deserves such recognition.”

In selecting awardees, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation searches for individuals who are “on the precipice of great discovery or a game-changing idea,” according to its website. The grant is designed to give recipients the freedom to pursue their interests without restriction or a reporting requirement.

As a 2015 award winner, Voigt will receive $625,000, which will give her the “flexibility to pursue [her] own artistic, intellectual and professional activities” over the next five years. Among the 2015 recipients, Voigt joins an inorganic chemist, economist, neuroscientist, playwright, set designer and journalist, among the diverse group of awardees.

“When you look at the list of the 24 of us this year or previous years and see people who are doing important medical research and making all of these contributions to humankind,” Voight said, “for the Foundation then to believe that the arts are just as important is just extremely gratifying.”

Voigt is not alone in her accolades this year. MFA faculty member Maud Casey recently won the 2015 St. Francis College Literary Prize, which includes $50,000, for her novel, “The Man Who Walked Away.” Lauren Groff and T. Geronimo Johnson, who will both begin teaching in the MFA Program for Writers in July 2016, are longlist nominees for the National Book Award in fiction. Moreover, MFA faculty member Jennifer Grotz has been awarded a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Translation, and her colleague Anthony Doerr won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

“That’s been the thing that’s been very, very moving to me,” Voigt said. “People have written to congratulate me on the prize, but also then to tell me how important the [MFA Program for Writers] was to them and how it’s changed their lives.”

For more information about the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, visit http://warren-wilson.edu.