Rainier Writing Workshop
NEWS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS
"....an experience I'll carry with me through my entire writing life and it's shaped me in ways I'm only beginning to understand."
RECENT NEWS
- '08 MFA graduate April Lawson was awarded the George Plimpton Prize by Paris Review, 2011
- Current student, Natalie Haney Tilghman, won first place for Fiction in The Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest, 2011
- Current student, Mandy Clark, appeared on Good Morning America Friday, June 17, 2011, because of her writing project.
- Three of the finalists in the prestigious National Poetry Series are Rainier Writing Workshop participants: one current student, one graduate, and one faculty member.
- '07 MFA graduate Kelli Agodon was won the Gold Medal Book of the Year award, 2010
- Amy Andrews has won the 2010 New Millennium Writings Award for Nonfiction for her essay, "hide and seek."
- Natalie Tilghman, just back from her stint as visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, has had a story selected for a young adult anthology from Persea Books.
- Erin Hollowell received the Rona Jaffe Foundation Scholarship in Poetry to the Breadloaf Writers Conference for Summer, 2010.
- Casey Fuller has been awarded the 2010 Jeanne Lohmann Poetry Prize, a statewide prize for Washington State poets. (NB: Boyd Benson was the winner in 2009.)
- Rick Dakan's new novel, The Cthulhu Cult: A Novel of Lovecraftian Obsession, is now out and available at Amazon.com.
- Holly Hughes' anthology, Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease, was selected for a 2010 Independent Publisher Book Award.
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Recent graduates have distinguished themselves in the following ways:
BOOKS AND CHAPBOOKS
- White Pine Press Poetry Prize
- Nonfiction book, Beacon Press
- Winner of the Chapbook Award from Floating Bridge Press
- Lost Horse Press New Poets Series
- Full-length book, Foothills Press
FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS, PUBLICATIONS
- Independent Publisher Book Award.
- Winner of a Rona Jaffe Fellowship, 2008
- Winner of the first Creative Nonfiction MFA Program-Off, published in The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 3, W. W. Norton.
- National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry.
- National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry
- Press 53 Open Award Grand Prize Nonfiction
- Winner of the Prairie Schooner Prize for Poetry, Publication by the University of Nebraska Press;listed as one of the best books of poetry in 2006 by the American Library Association.
- First Place in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly Student Contest, 2007; publication in The Atlantic Monthly.
- Essay published in The Georgia Review; winner of 2007 GAMMA Gold Award for Best Feature from the Magazine Association of the Southeast; republished in Utne Review.
- Jack Straw Fellowship
- Crab Orchard Review John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Prize
- The American Poet Prize
- Press 53 Open Award Grand Prize Nonfiction
- Story Quarterly Annual
- Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize winners
- Compiled an anthology of Alzheimer's Disease, with introduction by Tess Gallagher; published by Kent State University Press
- Short story included in 18 Lies and 3 Truths: The 2007 SQ Annual
- Published Reviews in the Colorado Review, Rattle, and American Book Review
MISCELLANEOUS
- Contributing Editor, The AWP Chronicle
- Internships, Copper Canyon Press
- Fellowships, American Academy in Rome
- Ph.D. programs, University of Nebraska/Lincoln; Univerisity of Akron
- Internships, WritingItReal.com.
- Founded a radio show/reading series: River & Sound Review.
- Short story made into a short film by Smiling Toad Productions of Canada; premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, went on to win the Golden Sheaf Award at the Yorkton Film Festival in Canada, a “Golden Monkey’ Award in Leicester, England, the Audience Choice for Best International Film in Cologne, Germany, and a Remi Award at Houston’s Worldfest.
- Served on panels at AWP Conference in Atlanta, GA, 2007, New York City, 2008, Chicago, 2009, Denver, 2010
