December 12, 2013
Lecturer in English receives $25,000 literature fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts
Rebecca Makkai, a Lecturer in English at Lake Forest College, earned a a $25,000 fellowship from the National Endowment fo...
Rebecca Makkai plans to use to the fellowship for travel and research expenses over the next year in hopes of expanding an essay she wrote about her family’s history in Hungary in the 1930s into a book. She is one of only 38 recipients of this highly competitive award from across the nation.
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa announced that Rebecca Makkai has been selected to receive a fiscal year 2014 $25,000 Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose (fiction or creative nonfiction).
Makkai joined the Lake Forest College faculty last fall and also teaches at StoryStudio Chicago and Sierra Nevada College. She is the author of the novels The Borrower (a Booklist Top 10 Debut of 2011) and The Hundred-Year House (forthcoming from Viking/Penguin in 2014). She is also the author of numerous short stories, four of which have been selected for the prestigious Best American Short Stories anthologies.
Makkai said that she was “heartened by this recognition and support at a crucial point in my career.”
The Lake Forest resident published a piece this July in Harper’s Magazine that was based on her family’s history in Hungary in the 1930s; with this fellowship, she hopes to expand that essay into a book, which would entail travel to Hungary and quite a bit of translation, as she does not speak the language.
Makkai was awarded the fellowship based on a manuscript submitted in the application and reviewed through an anonymous process in which the only criteria for review are artistic excellence and artistic merit. She is one only 38 applicants from across the nation to receive the highly competitive award.
“This is a formidable group of both emerging and well-established writers,” said NEA Acting Director of Literature Amy Stolls. “They demonstrate an impressive range of styles and subject matter. We are proud to recommend each of them for an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship.”
NEA Creative Writing Fellowships provide non-matching grants of $25,000 to published writers that enable them to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. Successful manuscripts are selected through an anonymous, panel-review process for which the sole review criteria is artistic excellence and merit.
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