Deadline: January 2, 2018
Applications are currently being accepted for the Steinbeck Fellows Program of San José State University. This is a creative writing fellowship program that offers emerging writers of any age and background the opportunity to pursue a significant writing project while in residence at SJSU. The emphasis of the program is on helping writers who have had some success, but not published extensively, and whose promising work would be aided by the financial support and sponsorship of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies and the University’s creative writing program.
The Steinbeck Fellowship Program is named in honor of author John Steinbeck and is guided by his lifetime of work in literature, the media, and environmental activism. The program offers the opportunity to interact with other writers, faculty and graduate students, and to share their work in progress by giving a public reading once each semester during the fellowship. The selected fellows must give a public reading once each semester during the fellowship and are expected to live in the San José/San Francisco Bay area during the academic year (approximately 1 September 2018 to 20 May 2019).
Benefits
One-year fellowships, each with a stipend of US$10,000, are open to writers of fiction, drama, creative nonfiction, and biography. Applicants do no need to be U.S. citizens. The number of fellowships offered varies each year; for 2017/18 there were six fellows.
Eligibility
- Open to emerging writers of any age and background
- Writers may not be enrolled in an academic degree program during the fellowship period and there is no application fee.
- Applications in poetry will not be accepted.
In awarding fellowships, the selection committee considers the quality of the candidate’s proposal and any factors that would lead to expectations of future publication and other achievement. The creative writing fellowship does not require that there be any direct connection between Steinbeck’s works and that of the applicant. Fellows may not be enrolled in a degree program during the fellowship period.
Application
To apply writers must provide:
- a proposal or prospectus for the work to be written (one to three pages including basic timeline)
- a resumé
- three letters of recommendation
- a writing sample of no more than 25 pages
Start your application here.
For more information, visit Steinbeck Fellows Program.
