This scholarship is offered annually in honor of the life and work of Monique Wittig, French novelist, poet and social theorist. Wittig was a professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson from 1990 to 2003. First published as a novelist, Monique Wittig’s fiction revolutionized French literature. Mary McCarthy called her “the best writer anywhere of her generation.” Wittig’s fiction, as well as theoretical writing, has had a fundamental and worldwide impact upon feminist theory and lesbian and gay theory.
In honor of Monique Wittig, 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 scholarship is open to writers in all fields including literature, film, theater, poetry, essays and new/mixed media. The winner will be expected to present from the work in progress at the awards ceremony.
Applications should include the application form and a cover letter indicating how the student’s work addresses the political and artistic goals of the scholarship, and how the project relates to the student’s other work, and where possible, the work of Monique Wittig. It should also include a writing sample (or other artistic sample) from the project that will be helped by the award, and a plan that demonstrates how the scholarship will aid the student in completing his/her project.
Checklist:
1) Completed Application Form
2) Cover Letter
3) Writing Sample from your project—8-18 pages (if prose, double-spaced)
4) A plan on how this scholarship will facilitate the completion of your project
Applications will be accepted in March 2012. Applications due Friday, March 5, 2012 by 5:00 p.m.
Submit applications online to:
http://apps.sbs.arizona.edu/project/wittig_scholarship/
Direct questions to:
Monique Wittig Writer’s Scholarship
Gender & Women’s Studies Department
Laura Caywood Barker, Administrative Assistant
Email: lcaywoodbarker@email.arizona.edu
Phone: 520-626-0656
2005 Scholarship Recipient: Padma Viswanathan
Bio
Padma Viswanathan's novel, The Toss of a Lemon, has been published in six countries and was shortlisted for for the Commonwealth Prize (Regional) for Best First Book, Amazon.ca First Novel Prize and the Pen Center USA Fiction Award. The novel was her thesis at the University of Arizona, and the work for which she received the Monique Wittig scholarship. Her short fiction has appeared in journals including New Letters, Subtropics, and The Malahat Review, and she took first prize in the 2006 Boston Review Short Story Contest. Other prizes include fellowships from the NEA and the Canada Council for the Arts, and residencies from the MacDowell Colony and the Banff Playwrights' Colony. She now lives in Arkansas, where she is at work on another novel.
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2006 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 OkutoroBio
Lydia Omolola Okutoro was born in Lagos, Nigeria and raised in New York City. She received her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona.
She is a former middle school teacher who currently works as an editor at Scholastic, Inc. in New York. Her writing has appeared in Essence Magazine, Worcester Magazine, So To Speak, and Reading Community, a Harcourt Brace textbook. Her first book, Quiet Storm: Voices of Young Black Poets, published by Jump at the Sun/Hyperion Books, was selected by the American Library Association as a Best Book for Young Adults in 2000.
Lydia is currently at work on her memoir about being an immigrant child in America and growing up without her family. The Wittig Scholarship helped her fund a writers' workshop in Prague, where she received valuable feedback on the memoir project.
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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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2010 Scholarship Recipient: Emily DePrang
Bio
Emily DePrang is a writer and journalist whose explorations of identity and visibility have been documented on the blog Pigeon in the Sun, at the WYSIWYG and SMUT reading series in New York, NY, and in her essays for Nerve.com, The Texas Observer, and more. Her work has been republished in the anthologies Best Sex Writing 2006 and We Who Dared Say No to War: American Anti-War Writing From 1812 to Now. She’s currently a Contributing Writer for The Texas Observer, the 2010-2011 Nonfiction Editor for the Sonora Review, and is pursuing her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She is 29.
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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, Women's Studies, University of Arizona, PO Box 210438, 925 N. Tyndall, Tucson, AZ, 85721.
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