English Professor Camille Dungy has been awarded a prestigious $25,000 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The NEA has a long history of providing funding for the creation and translation of some of the world’s best literature. The fellowships are highly competitive, with awards split between Creative Writing and Translation. Dungy won a Creative Writing NEA Fellowship in Prose for 2018. There were 1,692 eligible applicants for the Creative Writing category this year.
She was excited about it, too.
“I was circling Old Town looking for parking, because I’d been trying to run in to Old Firehouse Books to pick up some gift certificates,” she said. “I pulled over in a fire lane when I realized the call was from the NEA. Even with my car’s hands-free phone system, I would have been too ecstatic and distracted to drive safely.”