Residency #136
FEBRUARY 15 - MARCH 7
(Application Deadline: October 23, 2009)

ROSELLEN BROWN, literature

Rosellen Brown’s fifth novel, HALF A HEART, was published in 2000 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and in paperback by Picador in 2001.  She is the author of four other novels (BEFORE AND AFTER, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992/Delta, 1998, which has been translated into 23 languages and became a film starring Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson; CIVIL WARS, KNOPF, 1994/Delta, 1998; TENDER MERCIES, Knopf, 1978/Delta 1998; THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY MOTHER, Doubleday, 1976/Delta, 1998); three collections of poetry (SOME DEATHS IN THE DELTA, University of Massachusetts Press, 1970; CORA FRY, Norton, 1977, and a sequel, CORA FRY’S PILLOW BOOK, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994).  She has also published a collection of stories (STREET GAMES, Doubleday/Ballantine, 1974; Norton, 2001), and a miscellany containing essays, stories and poetry, A ROSELLEN BROWN READER (University Press of New England, 1992), one of a series of books by writers associated with the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.  She has published widely in magazines and her stories have appeared frequently in O. HENRY PRIZE STORIES,  BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES and PUSHCART PRIZES.  One is included in the best-seller BEST SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY, edited by John Updike.

She has been the recipient of an award in literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Bunting Institute, the Howard Foundation, and twice from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was selected one of Ms. Magazine’s 12 “Women of the Year” in 1984.  CIVIL WARS won the Janet Kafka Prize for the best novel by an American woman in 1984.

She teaches in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

* For more information on Rosellen Brown, please visit http://www.rosellenbrown.com/

Residency Statement

I am committed to the idea that first thought is not always best thought, and – as someone who routinely crosses boundaries between genres to find whatever form my material needs – I like to prod my writers to try multiple approaches to everything they write. I’d like to work (in a group and in conferences) with people eager to begin new writing or to go forward with a project still malleable, open to change that might overturn it and force a wholesale re-thinking.  We will do exercises for increased flexibility and will read our betters (if not necessarily our elders).

Application Requirements