This scholarship will be offered annually in honor of the life and work of Monique Wittig, who was a professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson from 1990 to 2003.
The Monique Wittig Writer’s Scholarship will foster innovation in literary forms and the connection between politics and language. It will allow University of Arizona graduate and undergraduate students to allocate more time to their writing.
This endowed scholarship is open to writers in all fields including literature, film, theatre, poetry, essays and new/mixed media.
Applicants must indicate how their work addresses the political and artistic parameter of the Scholarship, and provide a writing sample and a writing plan that demonstrate how their work will benefit from the Scholarship.
The evaluation committee is composed of colleagues of Monique Wittig, former recipients and the initiator of the scholarship, Sande Zeig, Wittig’s partner.
The application is available every January. The deadline is Friday, March 30, 2010 at 5:00pm. The Award Ceremony is held in late April.
2005 Scholarship Recipient: Padma Viswanathan
Bio
Padma Viswanathan's novel, The Toss of a Lemon, will be published by Random
House Canada in April/08, Harcourt USA in September/08. In 2009 it will also be
published by El Anden in Spain and Garzanti in Italy. The novel was her thesis
at the University of Arizona, and the work for which she received the Monique
Wittig scholarship. Excerpts of the novel have been published in Prism
International and AGNI Online. Her short fiction has also recently been
published in Subtropics, New Letters, and the Malahat Review. Her story
"Transitory Cities" won the 2006 Boston Review Short Story Contest. She now
lives in Arkansas.
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2005 Scholarship Recipient: Susan Meyers
Bio Honorable Mention: Waylon N. Begay and Sandy Yang
A Seattle native, Susan Meyers has lived and taught language and writing in
Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the
University of Minnesota in 2004, and she is currently finishing a doctorate in
Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Arizona. She has strong
interests in both the cross-cultural aspects of written communication as well as
women's historical struggle to find voice - whether in fiction, poetry, or
rhetoric. Her doctoral thesis focuses on written literacy in the lives of
migrant women in Mexico, and her novel manuscript, The Candybutcher's Daughter,
is fictionalized account of her grandmother's early life as a circus acrobat,
under-aged tavern proprietor, WWII welder, and nightclub photographer. Susan used the Wittig scholarship to pay travel expenses to attend a residency
at the Hedgebrook Retreat for Women Writers in Whidby Island, WA. Her two
months at Hedgebrook during the summer of 2006 were instrumental in helping her
produce the first completed draft of her novel manuscript, which she is now
revising and
preparing for submission. Also, while at Hedgebrook, she met a
former-Fulbrighter, who helped give her a sense of how to apply for a Fulbright
fellowship. Happily, she was successful, and is now engaged in her own Fulbright
year! She believes that in many ways, the seeds of her current achievements lay
in that summer at Hedgebrook--which was directly funded by the Wittig
scholarship.
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2007 Scholarship Recipient: Lydia Omolola Okutoro
2008 Scholarship Recipient: Christina Louise Smith
Bio Honorable Mention: L. Monique Tippins
C.L. Smith is a poet and writer graduating from the University of Arizona with a BA in English Lit. and Creative Writing in Spring 2008. Having lived in many places, locality reproaches her. Her chapbook of poetry is titled Blackberrying.
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2009 Scholarship Recipient: Patricia I. Escarcegá
Bio
Honorable Mention - Bo McGuire Bio
Patricia Escárcega received her MFA from the University of Arizona in
May 2008. She is currently a graduate student in the School of Information
Resources and Library Science. She is finishing her first novel, tentatively titled
The Window Seat.
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Bo McGuire hails from Hokes Bluff, Alabama, and currently suffers the
Tucson heat gladly where he is a Rogers' Fellow in creative writing at the
University of Arizona. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming
from elimae, Forklift,Ohio, and The Pinch. Currently he is at work on two projects:
one, a manuscript of poems called Holler and a second critical work exploring
queerness in the U.S. South through hillbilly diva worship.
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For additional information contact: Shannon Ritchie or 520-626-0656. http://ws.web.arizona.edu/academics/scholarships.php
Donors can support the Monique Wittig Writer’s Scholarship Endowment
in the following ways:
A gift of cash. ( Please make checks payable to the UA Foundation/Wittig Scholarship Endowment, with "Women's Studies" listed in the memo section.)
. A pledge over three to five years.
. Marketable securities. We accept securities and sell them upon receipt.
. A family foundation can transfer funds to the UA Foundation
. Planned or estate gifts.
. Real Estate or personal property.
All contributions are tax deductible.
All contributions are greatly appreciated.
For further information, please contact Ginny Healy, Development Officer, College of Social and Behavioral at 520 621-3928.
The mailing address is:
Monique Wittig Scholarship Endowment, Department of Gender and Women's Studies, University of Arizona, PO Box 210438, 925 N. Tyndall, Tucson, AZ, 85721.
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