The 2003 Literature Fellowships

Work by a sampling of the poets who received a 2003 Fellowship.

The Authors

"I grew up on top of the longest cave in the world (Kentucky's Mammoth Cave), and for the last seven years, while working as a Park Ranger at Mammoth Cave National Park, I have been writing a series of poems about the cave itself and the lives of the people above it. The poems of my first book, Ultima Thule, like the eyeless fish found in Mammoth's Echo River, evolved in the silence and darkness of the cave. The poems I am writing now begin to venture out into the world of light, into the vanishing communities of tobacco farms above the cave. With an NEA Fellowship, I would take time off my current job at the University of Arkansas to continue my research and writing in the "Caveland" of South Central Kentucky. I propose to write a series of poems called "Tobacco Music." " - Davis McCombs, FY 2003 Literature Fellowship Recipient

In 2003 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded 38 Creative Writing Poetry Fellowships, each in the amount of $20,000 and ten grants to published translators in the amount of $10,000 or $20,000. In all, the NEA received well over 1600 applications from American citizens living in every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and abroad.

Literature Fellowships represent the National Endowment for the Arts's most direct investment in American creativity. The program's goal is to encourage the production of new work and allow writers the time and means to write or translate. At the time of the fellowship award, few recipients make their living from writing; most hold full-time jobs as teachers, administrators, day laborers, or temporary office workers. Literature Fellowships not only give writers national recognition - often for the first time - and invaluable validation of their talent to peers, agents, publishers, and presenters around the country, they also give writers valuable creative time away from their daily jobs. Sixty-one percent of the writers recommended for fellowships this year are 40 or younger; over one third have not yet had a book published.

The Endowment's investment in American letters has ensured that a diversity of voices has defined our national literature during the second half of the 20th century, and has helped to nurture talent within a marketplace that often rewards homogeneity while discouraging innovation. Six individual authors account for 63 of the top 100 best-selling books of the 1990's. But during the past 35 years, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded $39 million through its Creative Writing Fellowships to more than 2,450 writers, and sponsored work resulting in more than 2,300 books, including many of the most acclaimed novels of contemporary American literature: Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, William Kennedy's Ironweed, and Bobbie Ann Mason's In Country.

The record of the Literature Fellowships program shows unparalleled support for writers at critical, early stages of their careers. Every recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry from 1990-2002 received a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts at least seven years prior to winning the national award. Carl Dennis, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for 2002, was recognized by the Arts Endowment 14 years earlier when he received a Literature Fellowship in 1988. Other 1988 Literature Fellowship recipients include Ethan Canin, Sandra Cisneros, Gish Jen, Michael Cunningham, Terry McMillan, Billy Collins, Frances Mayes, Yusef Komunyakaa, and current United States Poet Laureate Louise Glück. Please see the chart of fellowships winners who have also received national awards.

Listed here is a sampling of the poets who received a 2003 Fellowship, with a short bio, artist statement, and poem. For more information about NEA Literature Fellowships, guidelines, or deadlines, please call 202/682.5034.

Please see the list of all the recipients of the 2003 Literature Fellowships in Poetry and translation.

Please also see work by recipients in 2001 and 2002.

National Endowment for the Arts
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