2010 SASE/Jerome Grant Recipients Announced!
Congratulations to our 2010 SASE/Jerome Grant Winners!
BRIAN LAIDLAW ($3,000)
is a poet and folk songwriter from Northern California. After a few
years of touring and rambling, he is currently working toward an M.F.A.
in poetry at the University of Minnesota. Brian has released several
musical albums, including Fond Memories of Sound, with Garagista
records, and his song lyrics have appeared in American Songwriter
Magazine. He was also the recipient of the 2009 Gesell Award for
Poetry and a finalist for the 2010 Loft Mentor Series. Most recently,
he received the inaugural Book Arts Fellowship from the University of
Minnesota, and will be releasing an artist book with Deer Let Loose
Press in 2010.
MICHELE MICKLEWRIGHT ($2,500)
Michele Micklewright, writer, spiritual director, chaplain and mother
has spent many years engaged with her community, accompanying members
as they face transition and loss. Her poetry, reflections and essays
have been used in ministry settings. Her commitment has been centered
in parishes, shelters, hospice, hospital and long-term care facilities
in Latin America and in the States. She engages common human
experience, the written word and theological reflection in dialogue to
seek understanding. She wrestles with questions about how one can seek
to live a life of integrity in a world where structures often forget
the most vulnerable in society. She attempts to give image and form to
those areas of our world that remain hidden. Facing her own limitations
and brokenness, she wrestles with redefining what it means to seek
wholeness. She has published in Vision, Maryknoll In-Touch, Chaplaincy
Today. She is working on a spiritual memoir.
MARGIE NEWMAN ($2,000) Margie
Newman's publications include Jewish Currents, Outlook and Dislocate.
She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota.
She was a winner of the Loft Shabo Award and the Loft Mentorship
Series, and has received a University of Minnesota Travel Study
Fellowship and a grant from the Howard Brin Jewish Arts Endowment. She
is currently at work on a memoir. She lives in St. Paul with her
husband David Unowsky and son Owen.
MIKE ROLLIN ($2,000) Mike
Rollin has worked as an interpreter and community organizer, and as a
writing instructor at the University of Minnesota, the College of St.
Catherine, and the Loft. He received a MFA in Creative Writing from
the University of Minnesota, was a Loft Mentor Series winner in poetry,
and has been nominated for a Puschcart Prize. His poems have appeared
in Puerto del Sol, Bombay Gin, Water~Stone, Xcp: Streetnotes, Northwest
Review, mnartists.org, and elsewhere. He lives in Minneapolis with his
wife, author Laura Flynn, and children Samantha and Niko.
ERIC VROOMAN ($3,500) Eric
Vrooman’s short fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Minnesota
Monthly, The Cream City Review, Passages North, Monkeybicycle, Ninth
Letter, and elsewhere. He has taught creative writing at Macalester
College, Tulane University, Gustavus Adolphus College, and The Loft
Literary Center.
STEPHANIE WATSON ($2,775) published
her debut book, Elvis & Olive, a middle-grade novel, with
Scholastic Press. The book was named a 2008 Junior Library Book
selection and a Washington Post Book of the Week. The sequel, Elvis
& Olive: Super Detectives will be on store shelves in July of 2010.
In March of 2009, Stephanie created Life is Life, an online serial
story in words and pictures. A groundbreaking storytelling experiment,
Life is Life has drawn online readers from over 50 countries. A
graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Stephanie Watson grew up in
Minneapolis, Minnesota and now lives across the wide Mississippi in St.
Paul. In addition to writing fiction, she teaches at the Loft Literary
Center and runs a web copywriting agency called PlumLines.
Congratulations to our 2010 SASE/Jerome Finalists!
BRIAN FARREY received
his MFA in Creative Writing at Hamline University in 2008, where his
novel, CHASERS, was recognized as Outstanding Fiction Thesis. He is
currently the acquiring editor for Flux, the young adult imprint for
Llewellyn Worldwide. His debut YA novel is forthcoming from Simon Pulse
in 2011.
KATE HOPPER holds an MFA in creative
writing from the University of Minnesota. Her writing has appeared in
Brevity, Literary Mama, mamazine, MotherVerse, and The New York Times
online. She is working on two books: Ready for Air, a memoir about
learning to live with uncertainty in the wake of her daughter’s
premature birth; and Mother Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers. Her
next book, In the Arms of Saint Vincent, will be based on life-history
research she conducted in San Vicente, Costa Rica. She teaches creative
writing online and at The Loft Literary Center and writes about
reading, writing, teaching and motherhood on her blog, Mother Words:
Mothers Who Write. She is Literary Reflections co-editor at Literary
Mama.
JOHN JODZIO is a winner of the
Loft-McKnight Fellowship. His stories have appeared in One Story,
Barrelhouse, Opium, The Florida Review and various other places in
print and online. A collection of his short fiction, “If You Lived
Here, You’d Already Be Home” will be published by Replacement Press in
March 2010.
JOAN MADEA TRYGG thinks her writing
is a natural result of her life entanglement with books--as a reader
and for almost twenty years, as a bookseller. She earned her MFA at
Hamline University in 2005, and received the Outstanding Thesis in
Creative Nonfiction Award. Her essays have been published in the
Journal of the Asian American Renaissance, and in the anthology, Cheers
to Muses: Contemporary Works by Asian American Women. She is Sansei
and lives in St. Paul.
JULES NYQUIST is a poet
experimenting with form, sound and performance. She also writes plays
and memoir, teaches at the Loft Literary Center, has interviewed
hundreds of authors on the radio and leads independent writing
workshops. She earned her MFA in Poetry from Bennington College,
Vermont and lives in Minneapolis.
KEVIN O’ROURKE
is originally from the Philadelphia suburbs. After a stint in New York
working in publishing, he moved to Minneapolis in 2007. He currently
teaches creative writing and is at work on his first collection of
poetry. He is a contributor to 300 Reviews and has work forthcoming in
Tammy.
This year, we received
105 grant applications, which were narrowed down to our 12 finalists by
three community judges: Elissa Elliott, Kathryn Kysar and Anna George
Meek. THANK YOU!
DON'T MISS IT!
4th Annual SASE/Jerome Celebration!
Saturday, February 20th
7PM at Intermedia Arts
$5 Suggested Donation; No one turned away!
Everyone Welcome.