2005-2006 FAWC FELLOWSHIPS

Selected from an international pool of more than 1,500 applicants, the ten writers and ten visual artists chosen by the Fine Arts Work Center for the 2005– 2006 Winter Fellowships arrived at the Work Center on Saturday, October 1. They were greeted by Visual Arts Coordinator Maryalice Johnston and Writing Coordinator Salvatore Scibona, both former Fellows, who collaborated with FAWC Office Manager Amy O’Hara on a New England-style cookout that was also attended by FAWC board members, staff and other former Fellows. During the first weeks of their seven-month residencies, as they settled into their apartments and studios, our current Fellows were treated to a blustery bash at the Malicoat dune shack, and gathered with other Provincetown residents and visitors in the Stanley Kunitz Common Room for a Fall reading series that included former Fellows and Pulitzer Prize-winners Jhumpa Lahiri and Franz Wright.

"We are pleased to welcome another group of Fellows this year, all of whom are terrific," said FAWC Executive Director Hunter O'Hanian. "We are indebted to the jurors for all of their hard work and for making sure that excellent selections were made." The selection process for both the Writing and Visual Arts Fellowships was extensive and painstaking. After a pre-jury composed of the Visual Arts Committee narrowed the field of applicants down to fifty, artists Joan Snyder, Jon Kessler and Pepón Osorio were charged with making the final choices of who would become this year’s Visual Arts Fellows. The selection process was distinguished by the fact that FAWC is one of the few national residency programs that reviews original work for its final selection. In July, following their announcement of the 8 new and 2 returning Fellows, the jury presented a group show at the Hudson D. Walker Gallery. At the end of October, the new Visual Arts Fellows were themselves the subject of an exciting show of their current work that featured paintings, drawings, video and mixed media constructions. As in years past, the arrival of great numbers of Writing Fellowship applications, all postmarked by the December 1st deadline, prompted the Provincetown Post Office to dispatch a separate van. The Cape Cod Times sent a reporter and photographer to document the great piles of envelopes thick with manuscripts.

Roger Skillings, FAWC Board Member, Chairman of the Writing Committee and himself a former Fellow, led the jury that selected the 2005–06 poets and fiction writers. Jury membership changes each year—recent juries have included Gail Mazur, Robert Pinsky, Major Jackson, Mary Oliver, Ann Patchett, Michael Cunningham and the late Alan Dugan—but the ability of the 16 judges (eight in each category) to identify emerging talent remains consistent. The selection process began in late December when jurors received manuscripts and made the first cut. Writing is the sole criteria; applicants are not interviewed nor do they submit recommendations. In March, jurors met in Provincetown for the semi-final round. For their final deliberations, they convened in late April to discuss, debate and argue the candidates’ merits and the final selections were made.

The Fine Arts Work Center offers the largest long-term residency program in the country designed for emerging artists and writers; twenty Fellows are funded for seven months with housing, studio space and modest stipends that allow them to focus on and develop their work. Since its inception in 1968, former Fellows—who include Pulitzer Prize-winners Michael Cunningham, Jhumpa Lahiri, Franz Wright, Yusef Komunyakaa, Wayne Biddle and former US Poet Laureate Louise Glück—have earned the most prestigious national and international prizes and awards in arts and letters. To catch up on the accomplishments of Former Fellows take a look at the "2006 Former Fellows News".