At this time each year, my thoughts turn to the Wyoming Arts Council fellowship programs.
As most of you know, the WAC offers fellowships in four categories: creative writing, Blanchan/Doubleday, performing arts and visual arts. We just wrapped up the last category on the list at the visual arts symposium April 2-4 in Laramie. Names of all of the 2009 fellowship winners and honorable mentions will be in the spring issue of Artscapes newsletter, due out the week of May 18.
Meanwhile, I've been working on recruiting a judge for the 2010 creative writing fellowships in poetry. This seems like an easy task, as there are more published poets in the U.S. than there are cabbies with Ph.Ds (and some of them are poets too).
I usually make a top ten list and work my way down it until I find a fine candidate who can judge the fellowships and can also come to the Casper College Literary Conference where we annually hold the fellowship reading. The first poet I asked has a fellowship that takes him overseas for a year. The second one is buying a house and moving this summer so didn't want to lose all the Wyoming manuscripts in transit. The third one didn't like the sound of my voice. The fourth...
You get the picture. I'm awaiting word now from a very fine poet from a state bordering Wyoming. I will get an answer this week and then have the applications a few days after that. I've already moved the deadline back from June 19 to June 29, which still gives us plenty of time to promote the competition and for Wyoming poets to enter.
One other complication. Casper College was shifting around the dates for its literary conference. The fall is a tricky time to plan an event, even one that's been going on for more than 20 years. There are always conflicts, so you just do your best to land on a weekend with the fewest number of conflicting arts-oriented events. Also, if you're planning an event in Laramie, make sure you don't butt up against Homecoming or home games against CSU or BYU.
The Casper College Literary Conference will be held Oct. 8-10 in Casper. We're planning a great line-up of poets and prose writers, and hoping for decent weather.
Updates will appear on these pages. Until then, you can check out applications from last year's fellowships at http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/IndArtist/index.asp
Get more info from me, Mike Shay, by e-mailing mshay@state.wy.us or calling 307-777-5234.
