Karen Cotton selected as NEA theater fellow

Cheyenne journalist and children’s book author Karen Cotton has been chosen as a 2008 Institute Fellow in Theater and Musical Theater by the National Endowment for the Arts. She will attend the NEA-sponsored institute Feb. 5-15 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. While there, she will hone her reviewing skills by attending a number of live performances and working with professional theater critics.

Here’s what the NEA had to say about Karen’s application:

"Thank you for applying and giving us the pleasure of reading your materials and meeting you on paper. Your writing demonstrated passion, conceptual depth, integrity and imagination - and, above all, an eagerness to learn more and stretch your approach to theater with brave and conscientious zeal.

"There were nearly 50 applicants from 28 states who work in arts journalism at daily newspapers, alternative weeklies, magazines, online, television and radio stations outside the country's largest media markets. The competition was stiff. You should be very proud."

Karen is a features and entertainment reporter from the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle in Cheyenne. In 2004, she received an Individual Artist Professional Development grant from the Wyoming Arts Council. She grew up in Green River and is a graduate of Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs and the University of Wyoming in Laramie.