Purchase Prof Wins Creative Writing Fellowship

The National Endowment for the Arts has selected Purchase College creative writing professor Mehdi Tavana Okasi as one of 37 recipients of a $25,000 creative writing fellowship.

Okasi was chosen from among 1,763 eligible applicants by 23 readers and panelists. Through its creative writing fellowships program, the National Endowment for the Arts gives writers the time and space to create, revise, conduct research, and connect with readers.

“I’m grateful to the NEA for honoring me with this award,” said Okasi, an assistant professor of creative writing in his second year at Purchase. “This award comes at a crucial time for me, when immigrants like myself are daily faced with a dangerous and damaging vitriol. This award gives me the courage to continue with my novel, the story of two Iranian-American immigrant families finding their way in America. While the financial support is incredibly appreciated, I am also grateful for the emotional encouragement that accompanies this award. Namely, that art has the power to bridge cultures and peoples.”

The NEA’s creative writing fellowships program is arguably the most egalitarian grant program in its field: applications are free and open to the public; fellows are selected through an anonymous review process in which the sole criterion is artistic excellence; and the judging panel varies year to year and is always diverse with regard to geography, ethnicity, gender, age, and life experience.

“Since its inception, the creative writing fellowship program has awarded more than $45 million to a diverse group of more than 3,000 writers, many of them emerging writers at the start of their careers,” said NEA Director of Literature Amy Stolls. “These 37 extraordinary new fellows including Mehdi Tavana Okasi provide more evidence of the NEA’s track record of discovering and supporting excellent writers.”

Since 1990, 81 of the 138 American recipients of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and Fiction were previous NEA creative writing fellows.

Established in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded more than $5 billion in grants in every state and U.S. jurisdiction, the only arts funder in the nation to do so.

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