2006 FELLOWSHIP WINNER

Lyon College is pleased to announce the winner of the competition for the 2006 Visiting Fellowship in Creative Writing, Jennifer Haigh, of Hull, Massachusetts. She is the author of two novels, Mrs. Kimble, which won the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction, and Baker Towers, both from William Morrow. A collection of her short stories, which have appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, will be published in 2007. A magna cum laude graduate of Dickinson College, she was a Fulbright Teaching Scholar in Dunkirk, France, and she earned an M.F.A. degree in fiction writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. During the 2005 fall semester, she will teach in the graduate program in creative writing at Boston University.

Ms. Haigh will be in residence on the Lyon College campus during the first six weeks of the 2006 spring semester. While the bulk of her time will be spent writing, she will also teach a six-week seminar in the creative writing of fiction, give a public lecture and reading, and conduct a one-day writing workshop for community members. Lyon College will provide a campus office, housing, meals, a travel stipend, and an honorarium of $5,000.

The college received a number of very strong applications, including the following finalists:

Margaret-Love Denman of Durham, New Hampshire
Lenore Hart of Franktown, Virginia
Mary Nicole Kelby of Sarasota, Florida
Matthew Pitt of Brooklyn, New York
Lynn Pruett of Oxford, Mississippi
Mary Rakow of Playa Vista, California
Robin Romm of Berkeley, California
John Salter of Glyndon, Minnesota
Randall Silvis of Foxburg, Pennsylvania
Ron Tanner of Baltimore, Maryland

Information on the 2008 fellowship (genre to be announced) will be available in late 2006.