Summer Writing Fellowships 2003

The Kratz Center for Creative Writing

Eight of fifteen Summer Writing Fellowships applications were funded for 2003:

1                    David Spencer:  research plan for a third novel, Drag Home the Outliers, set in Baltimore City and Harford County.  Spencer's research plan includes forensic psychology, Baltimore City police work, and television journalism.  Spencer's first novel, How I Became a Fisherman Named Pete, was published in the spring of 2003; a draft of his second novel was presented as a senior thesis.

2                    Kristen Jenkins: travel to Lithuania as background for a sonnet cycle.  Jenkins has family connections to Lithuania and has traveled there previous.  She will study the Lithuanian language as well as writing poems.

3                    Helen McLaughlin: Attendance of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.  This summer workshop is organized by the Iowa Writers' Workshop, one of the best-known programs in the United States.  McLaughlin, a fiction writer,  will complete five components over a three-week period.

4          Jared Fischer:  travel to Grignon, France.  Fischer, both fiction writer and poet, is emulating travel poets from Wordsworth to Elizabeth Bishop.   The French language plays an important role in both his fiction and his poetry.  He will attend the Letter Festival in Grignon.

5          Jocelyn Heath: Internship at Baltimore Magazine.  Heath, a poet considering a career in journalism, will improve her research and feature writing skills and complete a project in creative nonfiction.

6              Matthew Ashby:  Ashby, a fiction writer and poet, will make a cross-country trip including stops in Wisconsin, Montana, Colorado, California, Louisiana, Texas and Tennessee, as background for a multi-media project in collaboration with Bryan Bieniek, a painter at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

7                    Maryah Converse: A fiction writer with a special interest in science fiction and fantasy, Converse will spend the summer working on a translation of Dragonfire, a novel by the German fantasy Wolfgang Hohlbein; the translation is already in progress.

8                                Itta Englander:  A fiction writer, Englander will make a series of research trips to New York City and Washington DC, to research a collection of short stories about the experience of immigrant Jews.