About Fellowships
Wallowa County, OR: Fishtrap is excited to announce the recipients of 4 Fishtrap Fellowships for 2013. Fellowships are intended to recognize and encourage writers showing promise at an early stage in their careers.
The 2013 fellows are Jose Alcantara, Nathan Slinker, Kelly Wallace and Rachel Khong. The four were selected from over 60 applicants. The final judge, Jennifer Sahn of Orion Magazine, says of the applicants “I had the honor of selecting four Fishtrap Fellows from a pool of great talent. There are two poetry fellows this year: Jose Alcantara, whose poetry offers a fresh and invigorating view of the natural world; and Fishtrap alumnus Nathan Slinker, who writes about transformative experiences in the West. Fiction writer Rachel Khong’s surprising and somewhat irreverent voice shows exciting promise, as does nonfiction fellow Kelly Wallace’s brittle and honest prose.
The opportunity to attend and participate fully in Summer Fishtrap is the paramount benefit of this award. Recipients are featured readers at an evening program during the week of Summer Fishtrap, July 8-14, and Fishtrap distributes a booklet of their writing during the event. More than 100 Fellowships have been awarded since 1990, and many Fellows have gone on to important publication and full-time careers as writers and teachers of writing. Previous Fishtrap Fellows include novelists Kathleen Tyau and Robert Stubblefield; poets Charles Goodrich and Marilyn Johnston; short fiction writers Kelly Mager and Geronimo Tagatac; and non-fiction writers Ellen Waterston and Christine Colasurdo.
This year’s fellows plan to take workshops from Holly Hughes, William Kittredge and Judy Blunt. Spaces are still open in many Fishtrap workshops that are filled on a first-come basis, please visit www.fishtrap.org for more details.
Fishtrap worked its magic on me. I arrived at the Summer Conference sure I didn’t deserve a Fellowship, and I’d prepared myself—expected, and maybe even hoped—to learn that a clerical error had been made when I reached the registration table. I was ready to tuck my chin and make the six-hour drive home. Instead I was welcomed by gorgeous people who’d not only read my application writing sample but were glad to see me. I usually have to go home for folks to have that reaction. Throughout the week, I felt more and more comfortable at Fishtrap. Not because I suddenly thought myself deserving—I still say I was badly spoiled—but because I was told, in workshop, after readings, over meals, again and again, that the novel I was writing was worth the work. That’s Fishtrap for you: No one asks where you’ve published, or what honors are attached to your name, or what your credentials are. Instead Fishtrappers want to know what you’re working on. And then want to read it. What could be better for a writer? What could be more usefully humbling? What can I say? I came to Fishtrap feeling out of my depth and found home. - John Carr Walker, 2012 Fishtrap Fellow
Past Fellows
1993: William Johnson, Bill Joseph, David Koehn, Laura Lee Newman, Lola Ready
1994: Bette Husted, Brenda Jaeger, Kate Joost, Evelyn Sharenov, Kelly Sievers
1995: Molly Cook, Leigh Hancock, Cathy Jontos-Putnam, Linda Leslie, Colleen Birch Maile
1996: Charles Goodrich, David Halpern, David Reimer, Rachel Hoffman, Leslie Ovard
1997: Toni Kennedy, Pam Steele, Eric Ottem, Ellie Mathews, Lisa Norris
1998: Maurine Barnett, Scott Sadil, Ellen Waterston, Geri Digiorno, Pat Cason
1999: John Sangster, Vicente Guzman-Orozco, Jennifer Kocher, Suzanne Burns, Eileen Thiel
2000: Mary Tanguay Webb, Burky Achilles, Ann Nelson, Geronimo Tagatac, Kamala Bremer
2001: Kurt Caswell, M.E. Hope, Marily Johnston, Steven Krolak, Ann Selby
2002: Patsy Kullberg, Marj Casswell, Dean Metcalf, Merna Ann Hect, David Drury
2003: Kristen Wares, John Moreland, Doug Miller, Jennifer Glick, Wayne Harrison
2004: Abigail Keller, Coy King, Eden Kruger, Dick Cass, and Joe Wilkins
2005: Kelly Magee, Michael Schiavone, Jeff Stautz; Michael FitzGerald, Deborah Bernhardt
2006: Kristine Anderson, Tom Boswell, Robert Drummond, Eric Shaffer, Gail Wells
2007: Wendy Call, Henrietta Goodman, Natalie Serber
2008: Judith Groudine Finkel, Lorraine Healy, Beverly Akerman, Anna Ross, Jennifer D. Munro
2009: Rebecca Yarrow, Jonathan Harnum, Kelly Luce, Jay Schroder, Ceiridwen Terrill
2010: Christine Colasurdo, Dave Jarecki, Christina Robertson, Rob Williams, William W. Wright.
2011: Drew Myron, Patricia Bailey, Angela Penaredondo, Nicole Cullen, Luke Johnson
2012: Kim Gratz, Irene Skyriver, John Walker