R.I. Foundation offering $25K fellowships to local writers

THE RHODE Island Foundation is offering $25,000 fellowships to three local writers that will enable them to devote a year to their art.
THE RHODE Island Foundation is offering $25,000 fellowships to three local writers that will enable them to devote a year to their art.

PROVIDENCE – The Rhode Island Foundation is offering $25,000 fellowships to three local writers that will enable them to devote a year to their art.

The deadline to apply for a MacColl Johnson Fellowship is Aug. 7.

Established in 2003, the Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Fellowship Fund awards up to three grants a year, rotating among composers, writers and visual artists on a three-year cycle.

The grants are considered to be among the largest “no-strings-attached” grants available to writers in the United States, according to information from the foundation.

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Previous recipients of writing fellowships include Marie Myung-Ok Lee, a visiting lecturer at Brown University whose first novel, “Somebody’s Daughter,” will be followed next year by a look at the future of medicine; and Michael Morse, the former Providence firefighter who authored “Rescue Providence” and “Mr. Wilson Makes It Home.”

Morse said his fellowship gave him more than just resources to devote more time to writing.

“When that phone call came in, it was kind of like just a big door opening for me. I was like, ‘My God, I must actually be a writer,’” Morse said. “It really did give me a lot more confidence, a little piece of mind, that what I was doing was going to be accepted eventually in a mainstream way.”

Fellowships are intended to free writers to concentrate time on their creative process, focus on personal or professional development, expand their body of work and explore new directions.
Over the years, the foundation awarded 30 grants totaling $750,000.

“Our financial support enables local writers to spend their time making art rather than making ends meet. That honors the importance that the MacColl Johnsons placed on the role of writers in the community,” Daniel Kertzner, the foundation’s senior philanthropic advisor for funding partnerships, said.

Applicants must have been legal residents of Rhode Island for at least 12 months prior to the Aug. 7 application deadline.
High school students, undergraduate and graduate students who are enrolled in a degree-granting program and writers who have advanced levels of career achievement are not eligible.

Applicants will be judged on work sample quality, artistic development and the creative contribution to the field of writing, as well as the potential of the fellowship to advance careers of emerging and mid-career writers.
Applications will be accepted from writers creating new original work including novels, short stories, plays and poetry.

Grants are unrestricted, but recipients are expected to devote concentrated time to their art during the term of the fellowship and to engage in activities that further their artistic growth.

This year’s recipients will be selected by a panel of four out-of-state jurors.
The fellowships are partially underwritten by the Madeline B. Standish Fund, created in 2010 to support the work of writers and artists.

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