PETERBOROUGH, N.H., JANUARY 11, 2017 -- The MacDowell Colony has awarded fellowships to 74 artists working in seven disciplines for upcoming residencies. The incoming group of MacDowell Fellows includes Academy Award-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, eight-time Grammy nominee and jazz composer Fred Hersch, and award-winning playwright Kia Corthron. They are part of a contingent who will be working in architecture, music composition, film and video, poetry, fiction and non-fiction writing, and visual, interdisciplinary, and theatre arts.
These highly competitive fellowships, each with an average value of $10,000, were awarded from among a pool of 732 applications received between July and September of 2016. A panel of distinguished professionals in each discipline picks Fellows based solely on their talent, and Fellows are provided a private studio for a period of up to eight weeks, accommodations and three meals a day at one of the nation’s leading contemporary arts programs.
“This next round of fellowships are going to a brilliant group of artists working on all manner of important work,” says Executive Director Cheryl A. Young. “From playwrights Kia Corthron, Madeline George, and Ayad Akhtar to visual artists like Michael Waugh and Paul Anthony Smith, MacDowell Fellows will be given the time, space, and support to pursue new works that often end up as exemplars of contemporary art.”
Fellows are provided uninterrupted time to work, and the unique multidisciplinary exchange artists tell us only a MacDowell residency can provide. Artists demonstrating need are often eligible for travel grants and stipends to cover expenses that accrue at home during a residency that lasts anywhere from two weeks to two months. More than 275 MacDowell Colony fellowships are awarded each year. The next application deadline is January 15, 2017 for next summer’s residency period.
By awarding these fellowships, The MacDowell Colony continues its long-standing mission to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination. It is a mission that has inspired essential contributions to American and world culture now for more than a century that have to date earned Fellows 78 Pulitzer prizes as well as many other accolades.
The most recent group of Fellows includes, according to discipline:
- Architects Ross Adams and Peter Yeadon.
- Composers Fred Hersch, Marta Sanchez, Steven Snowden, and Christopher Zuar.
- Film/Video artists Motoko Fukuyama, Irene Gutierrez Torres, Lana Lin, Tom Rosenberg, Scott Stark, Hope Tucker, and Lana Wilson.
- Interdisciplinary artists Shaun Irons, Lauren Petty, and Anna Sperber.
- Theatre artists Ayad Akhtar, Kia Corthron, Philip Dawkins, Dominic Finocchiaro, Madeleine George, Keelay Gipson, Carson Kreitzer, Ruby Spiegel, Francine Volpe, and Catherine Yu.
- Visual artists Nancy Bowen, Gohar Dashti, Hasan Elahi, Colette Fu, Travis Head, Ronen Raz, Paul Anthony Smith, Naqeeb Stevens, Margeaux Walter, and Michael Waugh.
- Nonfiction writers Sandra Allen, A'Lelia Bundles, Dionne Ford, Carmen Gimnez Smith, Lauren Hilgers, Riva Lehrer, Catherine Moore, Nadja Spiegelman, Merritt Tierce, and Wyatt Williams.
- Poets Sharon Charde, Eva H.D., Shayla Lawson, Nicole Sealey, Chet'la Sebree, Brenda Shaughnessy, Rashaad Thomas, and Jean Valentine.
- Fiction writers Gregory Brown, Lisa Brown, Rita Bullwinkel, Catherine Chung, Masha Hamilton, Sandra Hunter, Charlie Kaufman, Yahaira Lawrence, Paulette Livers, Ben Marcus, Michael Mount, Kamala Nair, Dennis Norris II, Bolaji Odofin, Ladi Opaluwa, Sharon Pomerantz, Lindsay Sproul, Zulema Renee Summerfield, and Courtney Zoffness.
For further information, contact: Jonathan Gourlay jgourlay@macdowellcolony.org 603-924-3886, ext.114
