Announcing 2014 Ragdale Rubin Fellowships

Ragdale is pleased to announce the recipients of the first Ragdale Rubin Fellowship, awarded to  graduate student Cat Jimenez and faculty member Patricia Ann McNair from Columbia College Chicago’s Department of Creative Writing on March 16 during this year’s Story Week Festival of Writers.  This Fellowship reflects an on-going collaboration between The Ragdale Foundation and the Fiction Writing Program to support affiliated writers who are judged by a panel of their peers for the high quality, innovation, and distinction of their work.  Each recipient will receive a fully underwritten, one-week residency in 2014-15 at Ragdale, the non-profit, artists’ retreat in Lake Forest that serves over 150 creative professionals each year.

Randy Albers, Chair Emeritus of the Fiction Writing Program, said “We are so pleased that Ragdale and Story Week were able to collaborate, and with the considerable help of Roberta Rubin and donors to the Rubin Fund, offer the first Ragdale residency awards to Patricia Ann McNair and Cat Jimenez—thus setting a wonderful course for the future.”

The Ragdale Rubin Fellowship is supported by Columbia College Chicago’s Rubin Fund to encourage talented writers early in their careers.  Well-known in the North Shore community, Roberta Rubin has been a long-time proponent of excellence in writing and reading as previous owner of the highly regarded, independent Book Stall of Chestnut Court in Winnetka.

Fellowship recipient Patricia Ann McNair is an Associate Professor in the Department of Creative Writing of Columbia College Chicago, where she received the Excellence in Teaching Award as well as a nomination for the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. Professor of the Year. McNair’s short story collection, The Temple of Air, was published in 2011 and awarded Book of the Year in Traditional Fiction by the Chicago Writers Association, among other accolades. She is currently at work on a novel, Climbing the House of God Hill.

Cat Jimenez is a writer and teaching artist living in Chicago. She has worked as an editor for MAKE Magazine, Hair Trigger, and F Magazine, and is an MFA candidate at Columbia College Chicago. She lives with her daughter on the city's west side, where she is at work on a collection of short stories set in her home state of California.

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Ragdale is a non-profit artists’ residency program created in 1976 that is located on architect Howard Van Doren Shaw’s Lake Forest country estate.  Today Ragdale is one of the largest interdisciplinary artists’ communities in the country, offering time and space to 150 artists and writers each year to do creative work.  For more  information, www.ragdale.org

Story Week Festival of Writers is presented each year by the Department of Creative Writing, Columbia College Chicago. This year, the 18th edition had  26 events, including panels, readings, conversations, writing workshops, performances, and open mics, with over 200 participants and an estimated 3,000 attendees.  www.colum.edu/storyweek/