Lyon College writer-in-residence wins NEA Creative Writing Fellowship

December 12, 2006

According to the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Lyon's Writer-in-Residence Andrea Hollander Budy is helping “make literature a more important part of American lives,” and the NEA has rewarded her work with a prestigious Creative Writing Fellowship for the second time.

Budy also won the award in 1991. The NEA awards only two fellowships to an individual, so Budy joins an elite group of two-time winners.

Budy, who lives in Mountain View, is the only 2007 award recipient from Arkansas and one of only 50 in the nation.

The author of three full-length collections of poetry, as well as three award-winning chapbooks, Budy said the $20,000 fellowship gives her much more than just money.

“Besides the generous monetary award, this kind of endorsement provides invaluable encouragement to writers, especially poets, who can never earn a living solely from creating poems,” Budy said.

The fellowships enable recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel and general career advancement.

Winners are chosen in a competition based solely on a 10-page manuscript of poems submitted by each applicant. The panel of judges, made up of distinguished contemporary writers, reads the manuscripts without knowing the identities of the authors.

Poetry fellowships are awarded only every two years. This year, approximately 1,400 published poets competed for 40 - 50 awards. The NEA only awards two such fellowships to an individual

For the past 40 years, the NEA has awarded literature fellowships to published creative writers of exceptional talent in the areas of prose and poetry for the purpose of “encouraging and supporting artistic creativity and preserving our diverse cultural heritage.”

An acclaimed poet and essayist, Budy's awards and honors include the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize for prose memoir, the Runes Poetry Award and two fellowships from the Arkansas Arts Council in addition to her pair of NEA fellowships.

She's published more than 200 individual poems and essays in anthologies, textbooks and literary journals, and has given more than 100 readings, lectures and workshops to audiences of all ages all over the U.S. and abroad.

In 1998, she won Lyon College's Lamar Williamson Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

But the accolades and honors aren't what compel Budy to put pen to paper in her search for words, rhythms and the truths they carry.

“I write because I believe in the power of poetry to positively transform our emotional lives,” she said.