Education Fellows
We have expanded our Fellows program for 2022 to include representatives from Teach for America. They will attend the Conference and offer feedback about the potential for future collaboration with TFA corps teachers and classrooms.
Writing Fellows
SVWC is committed to bringing aspiring writers to the Conference and providing them with inspiration and direction as they embark on their creative paths. We are thrilled to welcome four Writing Fellows in 2022—two from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and two from Louisiana State University’s Creative Writing MFA Program—who have been recommended by the faculty of their institutions/programs.
DAVID ASTROFSKY is a writer and teacher from Boston. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, recent finalist in Narrative Magazine‘s 2021 30 Below Contest, and is currently at work on a short-story collection and a novel.
JEREMIAH JENKINS is a writer and MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is currently teaching undergraduate fiction in Iowa City while at work on his first short-story collection.
SHAKIRAH PETERSON is a prose writer and multimedia artist whose work has been supported by the Hurston/Wright Foundation, Clarion West Writers’ Workshop, and Voices of Our Nation, among others. Her writing has appeared in The Amistad, Epiphany Magazine, The Citron Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Los Angeles, she is completing her MFA candidacy in Creative Writing at Louisiana State University.
PENDA SMITH is an emerging writer originally from New York and a second-year MFA student at Louisiana State University. She is a two-time Watering Hole fellow, forthcoming Cave Canem fellow, and has work featured/forthcoming at HuffPost, Obsidian Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Interim Poetics, and more.
Community Scholars
Thanks to the generosity of our donors, SVWC is proud to offer two local scholarships each year. A full pass, under the Barbara and Jim Cimino Scholarship, is awarded annually to the Executive Director of The Community Library. Another full pass is awarded each year to a local teacher or high school student through the Gary Hunt Scholarship in his memory.
Additionally, SVWC offers two full scholarship passes to Boise State University’s Creative Writing Department, Starting in 2023, proceeds from the annual bookstore profits will help to fund the lodging and travel and expenses for two candidates chosen by the faculty to attend the Conference.