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The 2002 Literature Fellowships

The Authors

Mary Allen
Karen Bender
Robert Bononno *
Judy Doenges
Anthony Doerr
Paul Eggers
Paul Hendrickson
John Felstiner *
Barbara Hurd
Stephen Jones
Norah Labiner


Christi Merrill *
Nicholas Montemarano
Sheila Mulligan
Michael Paterniti
Bill Roorbach
David Searcy
Kate Small
Robert Sullivan
Anthony Varallo
Mary Yukari Waters

* Translation Fellowship

"A people's literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can."
- Edith Hamilton

"If you thumb through some of the best literature produced in the last few decades in America, you will often find, there in the small print in the front matter, that work was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Many of those writers go on to win other awards. A fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts is a high honor, but it is also an opportunity to honor one's inevitable indebtedness to one's country."
- Cynthia Shearer (2000 Fellowship winner)

Much like the rest of the country, the offices here at the National Endowment for the Arts fell into a stunned silence on the morning of September 11th. Our home in the Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue was shut down and everyone sent home. The 2002 NEA Literature Fellowships panel meeting began that same morning. Evacuated from the building, the panel members (twelve writers, professors and literature professionals) returned to their hotel in downtown D.C. and decided they would finish the assignment that had brought them to our nation's capital - to discuss, debate and recommend the winners of the Creative Writing Fellowships for the next year. Our thanks to our panelists for their commitment and hard work at a very stressful time: Nicholson Baker, Peter Ho Davies, Rikki Ducornet, Cristina Garcia, David Guterson, Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, Lisa Howorth, Josephine Humphreys, Rick Moody, Stewart O'Nan, Marly Swick, and A.J. Verdelle.

It is with great pleasure that the Literature Program at the National Endowment for the Arts has the opportunity to present a sample of our 2002 Creative Writing Fellowship winners. Over 1,300 American writers applied in Fiction, Creative Non-fiction and Translation from 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The sole criterion for the Creative Writing Fellowship is literary merit. Every manuscript was reviewed by at least three panelists who did not know the identity of the author. For translation the panelists do know the identity of the translator, but take into consideration the level of artistic excellence and merit of the proposed project and the ability of the translator. In all, the NEA granted a total of 45 Fellowships this year.

NEA Creative Writing Fellowships award $20,000 to help the careers of American writers from all corners of the country and to give them the opportunity to do what they do best - to write. These are college professors, editors and auto-part store managers. They write about their childhood, Vietnam, cowboys, baseball, family, love, death. Those who win a fellowship often go on to become the voices for the American and human experience - with this fellowship they write novels and short stories, essays and letters that record the moments, ideas and emotions of today for readers and generations to come. Winners of the Literature Fellowship since 1990 have also been 40 of the 60 recipients of the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Pulitzer Prize in fiction and poetry. All but three received these awards after they were recognized by the NEA with a Fellowship, leaving no doubt about the artistic excellence and ability of our grantees.

Please also see work by recipients in 2001 and 2003.