Application window open for two festival tuition fellowships

CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Chautauqua Literary Arts and the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival announce two new Festival Workshop Tuition Fellowships for the June 2018 workshops. The fellowships are offered in partnership with VIDA, a non-profit feminist organization committed to creating transparency around the lack of gender parity in the literary landscape and to amplifying historically marginalized voices, including people of color; writers with disabilities; and queer, trans and gender nonconforming individuals.

The Chautauqua Writers’ Festival, with VIDA, will offer both tuition fellowships (one full $500 fellowship and one partial $250 fellowship) for two women or nonbinary poets of color. The selected fellows will enroll in a poetry workshop with either francine j. harris or Hoa Nguyen.

The fellowship application deadline is April 30, and the workshop registration deadline is May 31. Fellowships will be chosen by Writers’ Festival Director Lillian-Yvonne Bertram. Bertram is the author of three books of poetry (most recently Personal Science) and teaches in the MFA Creative Writing program at UMass-Boston.

The 2018 Writers’ Festival takes place from June 20 to 23 on the historic grounds of Chautauqua Institution in Western New York, just before the Institution’s summer season of interdisciplinary programming. The $500 workshop registration for fellows (covered fully or partially by the fellowships) includes: four class meetings with either francine j. harris or Hoa Nguyen; one individual consultation with that same faculty member; and access to all other Writers’ Festival programs. These include faculty readings, panel discussions and breakout sessions exploring various facets of the festival theme, “Writing in Times of Crisis,” as well as Kiese Laymon’s keynote address.

Fellows will have access to hotel housing that costs $75/night (or $37.50/night if they elect to room with another festival attendee). Each hotel room comes with one queen bed and one full bed. A shuttle runs regularly between the hotel and the main gate of Chautauqua Institution; however, the Writers’ Festival can arrange alternative shuttle transportation to accommodate accessibility issues. There is a hotel restaurant, but all festival attendees receive a 20 percent discount at restaurants and cafes on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution, and are also provided one catered lunch, grouped by workshop cohort, on the first day.

To apply for the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival’s VIDA tuition fellowships, visit chqliteraryarts.submittable.com. There is no application fee.

About Chautauqua Writers’ Festival

The 2018 Chautauqua Writers’ Festival will take place from June 20 to 23 on the historic grounds of Chautauqua Institution. In addition to the festival’s tradition of intensive workshops and one-on-one conferences with award-winning contemporary authors, writers may also explore the craft of writing in the context of urgent social questions through panel conversations, breakout sessions, and a keynote address from Kiese Laymon. The 2018 theme for this slate of new options is “Writing in Times of Crisis,” which will draw connections between the personal, the political, and the craft of writing. The faculty for the 2018 festival includes Jennine Capó Crucet, francine j. harris, Eleanor Henderson, Hoa Nguyen and Mike Scalise.

The 2018 Chautauqua Writers’ Festival is sponsored by Catapult, the Academy of American Poets, Wick Poetry Center and VIDA.

For more information, visit chq.org/writersfestival. For more about Chautauqua Literary Arts, visit literaryarts.chq.org or Facebook or Twitter at @chqliteraryarts.

About Chautauqua Institution

Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue.

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