Warren Wilson College MFA students win fellowships

[Rob Neufeld]

TWO WWC MFA GRADUATES RECEIVE STEGNER FELLOWSHIPS AT STANFORD

Helen Hooper, a January 2009 graduate in fiction, and Chiyuma Elliott, a January 2010 graduate in poetry, are among the 10 writers recently named as recipients of two-year Wallace Stegner Fellowships at Stanford University for 2011-2013, which includes a living stipend of $26,000 a year.

Fellows are regarded as working artists, intent upon practicing and perfecting their craft. There are no curricular requirements other than workshop attendance and writing. All the fellows in each genre convene weekly in a three-hour workshop with faculty. The Stanford Creative Writing Program's students are diverse in style and experience, with talent and seriousness the true common denominators.

Notable past Stegner Fellows include Wendell Berry, Raymond Carver, Philip Levine, Robert Pinsky and Tobias Wolf, as well as numerous Warren Wilson MFA faculty members including Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Samantha Chang, Stacey D’Erasmo, Ehud Havazelet, Dana Levin, Eric Puchner and Alan Shapiro. Two currently enrolled MFA students have also been Stegner Fellows: Keith Ekiss and Neil Fischer.