As discussed in an earlier post, we are aware that the lives of some members of our alumni and faculty community have been seriously disrupted due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

While FOW’s first obligation is to provide scholarships, we are offering a small measure of help in the form of $500 emergency assistance grants. Four grants have been allocated in April. Thanks to generous gifts from our community earmarked for this purpose, we’re able to expand this program to 14 additional $500 grants, seven to be allocated in May and seven more in June. These grants are only available to MFA Program for Creative Writing (Goddard and Warren Wilson) alumni and faculty.

If the pandemic has put you in dire financial straits, you can apply for one of the seven $500 May grants simply by emailing [email protected] with your full name and contact information, including your mailing address. 

We cannot possibly judge your needs. If you’re in serious need, simply apply—no explanation necessary. Names submitted no later than May 30^th will be included in the May cycle. Each person who applies will be assigned a number, and on May 31, seven will be selected via a random number generator. No bias, and no judgment; just the luck of the draw. Names submitted but not selected in April will be included in the random draw, and names submitted but not selected in May will be forwarded to the June round to be considered along with new applicants. We’ll publish a reminder in early June for that month’s cycle. Please note: this is a one-time gift per recipient/recipient’s family. 

With all best wishes for your health and safety,

The Friends of Writers Board

Friends of Writers offering $500.00 emergency grants in response to COVID-19

We fear that some members of our alumni and faculty community have found their lives seriously disrupted due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

While our first obligation is to provide scholarships, the Board would like to offer a small measure of economic relief in the form of eight total $500 emergency assistance grants. These grants will be issued in two application cycles: the first four grants in April, and the second four in July. These grants are only available to MFA Program for Creative Writing (Goddard and Warren Wilson) alumni and faculty.

We recognize that these grants will not resolve major financial hardship, but we hope they can serve as a stop-gap measure for some members of our community who are in need. If the pandemic has put you in dire financial straits, you can apply for one of the eight $500 grants simply by emailing [email protected] with your name and contact information. 

We cannot possibly judge your needs. If you are in serious need, simply apply—no explanation necessary. Names submitted no later than April 20^th will be included in the April cycle. The deadline for the July cycle will be announced in June. Each applicant will be assigned a number, and on April 21 four recipients will be selected via a random number generator. No bias and no judgment—just the luck of the draw. Names not selected will be forwarded to the next round to be considered along with new applicants. 

Please note: this is a one-time gift per recipient/recipient’s family. 

With all best wishes for your health and safety,

The Friends of Writers Board

Why There Are Words will host Friends of Writers for a Celebration reading in December.

Join Marcia Pelletiere, Patrick Martin, Katie Bowler Young, and Martha Rhodes for a reading at NYC’s Bowery Poetry Club on Sunday, Dec. 1 at 6 pm.

Last April, it was a great privilege to be elected the new president of Friends of Writers, the organization I care most about—as an alumna of the program and a longtime board member. I follow the remarkable Ellen Bryant Voigt, exceptional poet, founder of the MFA Program for Writers, and innovative educator. To honor her legacy, we hope to further endow the fund that bears her name. With your help, Friends of Writers looks to raise $125,000 to reach our goal of $300,000: the critical point at which we can begin to draw upon the interest and distribute scholarships. 

Students in the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College created this scholarship fund when they heard that Ellen had been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. They wanted to celebrate her poetry and the program she founded, one that puts craft and community above all else. Need-based like all FOW awards, this fund supports a student for an extra semester, giving the recipient a strong start toward a book-length manuscript before graduation. I hope you will join the board in contributing whatever you can—we hope everyone will give. 

Why would anyone take an extra semester? When I was Ellen’s student, she wrote, “You have a chance to cement another way of thinking, a non-discursive apprehension of what the world gives us, with the primary outlet, for the expression of those realizations, being poetry. Every instinct I have as a teacher is to urge you to fan that flame and pursue it wherever it takes you.” I was so lucky to have her support then, a kind of support that we as a community can now join together to offer to others in need.  

Ideally, every writer would be able to afford the time to study her craft and fulfill her potential. However, the sad truth is we are further from that world than ever, and students’ need for financial aid has grown. I’m asking you to give this year as much as you can to the Ellen Bryant Voigt Scholarship Fund, or to another fund of your choice. Please know that every dollar goes directly to helping students who demonstrate financial need. 

Friends of Writers is dedicated to enriching American poetry and fiction, and to the rigorous study of our craft, which informs fine writing. Last year, we were able to award more than $70,000 in scholarships, increasing the diversity of students, and nurturing the innovation and excellence of an ever-greater writing community of alumni and students.

Please donate today to the Ellen Bryant Voigt Fund online at friendsofwriters.org, or use the pledge envelope enclosed! 

In gratitude,

Abigail Wender P ’08

President, Friends of Writers

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