Stegner Fellowship
The Stegner Fellowship program is a two-year creative writing fellowship at Stanford University. The award is named after American Wallace Stegner (1909—1993), a historian, novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and Stanford faculty member who founded the university's creative writing program.
Ten fellowships are awarded every year, five in fiction and five in poetry. The recipients do not need a degree to receive the fellowships, though many fellows already hold the terminal M.F.A. degree in creative writing. A workshop-based program, no degree is awarded after the two-year fellowship. Prior to 1990, many fellows also enrolled in Stanford's now-defunct M.A. program in creative writing.[1][2]
Fellows receive a stipend of $37,500 per year, as well as health insurance and their tuition fee for Stanford.[3] Fellows are required to live close enough to Stanford to be able to attend all workshops, as well as other department-related readings and events.
History
Stegner founded the Stanford creative writing department and fellowship program in 1946. Initial funding was supplied by Dr. E.H. Jones, brother of the chair of the Stanford English Department, Richard Foster Jones. Initially the fellowship was for three writing fellows per year, many of whom were World War II veterans returning home from overseas. In 1973, then-director John L'Heureux expanded the program to include eight fiction writers and eight poets per year.[4] In 1992, the program expanded again to ten fiction writers and ten poets each year.
Faculty
The current poetry faculty for the program consists of director Eavan Boland, Kenneth Fields, and Patrick Phillips. The current fiction faculty for the program consists of Elizabeth Tallent, Adam Johnson and Chang-Rae Lee.[3] Other notable writers often serve as guest instructors for a quarter as part of other endowed lectureships. Recent visiting writers include Heather McHugh, Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee, Bharati Mukherjee, Robert Pinsky, Colm Toibin, Li-Young Lee and, just before his death in 2004, Thom Gunn. Notable previous long-term faculty include W. S. Di Piero and Denise Levertov in poetry; and John L'Heureux and Nancy Packer in fiction.
Notable Stegner Fellows
- Aaamina Ahmad
- Sam Sax
- Hieu Minh Nguyen
- Safia Elhillo
- Edward Abbey
- Gregory Abbott
- Molly Antopol
- James Arthur
- NoViolet Bulawayo
- Talvikki Ansel
- Ken Babbs
- Tom Barbash
- Peter S. Beagle
- Frank Bergon
- Wendell Berry
- David Biespiel
- Edgar Bowers
- Elizabeth Bradfield
- Jamel Brinkley
- Geoffrey Brock
- Jason Brown
- Bo Caldwell
- Gabrielle Calvocoressi
- Raymond Carver
- Samantha Chang
- Marilyn Chin
- Eddie Chuculate
- Max Crawford
- Alison Hawthorne Deming
- Jay Deshpande
- Stephen Dixon
- Harriet Doerr
- S. P. Donohue
- Geri Doran
- Jennifer Dubois
- Stephen Elliott
- Eugene England
- Chanda Feldman
- Jennifer Elise Foerster
- Ernest Gaines
- Andrew Grace
- Allan Gurganus
- Merrill Joan Gerber
- James Baker Hall
- Ron Hansen
- Sean Hill
- Alice Hoffman
- Skip Horack
- James D. Houston
- Maria Hummel
- Scott Hutchins
- Adam Johnson
- Amaud Jamaul Johnson
- Ken Kesey
- Suji Kwock Kim
- Chuck Kinder
- H.T. Kirby-Smith
- William Kittredge
- Dana Kletter
- Edgar Kunz
- Philip Levine
- Anthony Marra
- Hugh Martin
- Tom W. Mayer
- Ed McClanahan
- Michael McGriff
- Thomas McGuane
- Larry McMurtry
- Joanne Meschery
- Ottessa Moshfegh
- Naeem Murr
- Katharine Noel
- Gurney Norman
- Jenny Offill
- Tillie Olsen
- Julie Orringer
- ZZ Packer
- Charlotte Painter
- Don Paul
- Sara Peters
- Brittany Perham
- Robert Pinsky
- Angela Pneuman
- Eric Puchner
- Jacques Rancourt
- Stephen Ratcliffe
- Chip Rawlins
- Rita Mae Reese
- Peter Rock
- David Roderick
- Jennifer Richter
- Joshua Rivkin
- Emily Rosko
- Benjamin Alire Sáenz
- Keith Scribner
- Vikram Seth
- Charif Shanahan
- Alan Shapiro
- Solmaz Sharif
- Akhil Sharma
- Maggie Shipstead
- Tracy K. Smith
- Robert Stone
- Lysley Tenorio
- Justin Torres
- Scott Turow
- Abigail Ulman
- Kirstin Valdez Quade
- Corey Van Landingham
- Robert Vasquez
- Emily Warn
- Jesmyn Ward
- Sylvia Wilkinson
- Christian Wiman
- Tobias Wolff
- Mark Wunderlich
- Al Young
- Dean Young
- Kevin Young
- David Vann (writer)
References
- McNally, John (15 April 2010). The Creative Writer's Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist. University of Iowa Press. ISBN 9781587299490. Retrieved 8 October 2017 – via Google Books.
- "Stegner Fellowship – Complete List of Stegner Fellows « Stanford Creative Writing Program". Creativewriting.stanford.edu. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
- "Wallace Stegner Fellowship," Stanford University Creative Writing Department website. Accessed Nov. 3, 2012.
- "History of the Stanford Creative Writing Program," Stanford University Creative Writing Program. Accessed Nov. 3, 2012.
- https://creativewriting.stanford.edu/stegner-fellowship/current-fellows/former-stegner-fellows