Jane Marchant

 

Jane Marchant
Awarded
Creative Writing Fellowship
National Endowment for the Arts
January 2024

January 24, 2024, from NEA PRESS RELEASE

Jane Marchant Receives National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship

Washington, DC—Today, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Jane Marchant is one of 35 writers selected to receive an FY 2024 Creative Writing Fellowship of $25,000. This year’s fellowships are in fiction and creative nonfiction and enable the recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career development. Fellows are selected through a selective and anonymous review process and are judged on the basis of artistic excellence of the work sample they provided. These fellowships are highly competitive, with more than 2,100 eligible applications received for FY 2024.

NEA Director of Literary Arts Amy Stolls said, “The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to continue its longstanding investment in our nation’s writers. It is through their creativity and dedication that our nation’s literary landscape continues to be enriched with stories, perspectives, and ideas that reflect the rich diversity of cultures and strengthens our democracy.”

Born in San Francisco, Jane Marchant is a writer and photographer whose work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Guernica, Apogee, Catapult, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere. She’s received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation, Montalvo Arts Center, Tin House’s First Book Residency, Headlands Center for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, and Oak Spring Garden Foundation, among others. Formerly the PEN America Literary Awards Program Director, Marchant holds a BA and MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University.

In her public fellowship statement, Marchant wrote:

I was at a residency in the woods when a text came through from Amy Stolls, saying the National Endowment of the Arts had been trying to reach me. Did I have time for a call? My heart pounded in my ears as I navigated delayed texts, then downed wifi, failed landlines, and a rapid drive into town for signal, knowing my life was changing. When the news was finalized, I sat in my car, terrified, elated, and feeling real and seen as a writer in a way I’d always hoped to be.

A few years ago, I found my middle school autobiography, in which I wrote that my dream was to “be a writer and photographer and maybe even a gardener.” As an adult, I taped it to my fridge, and when I stepped back from a full-time job to write, I knew I was acting as the person I’ve always been. Now, I hike the woods of my childhood, writing a book about the trees, flowers, people, and land I most love. This recognition from the NEA provides necessary financials to nurture my artistic work, but most importantly, it gives validation that I am real, we artists are real, and the writer’s voice is deserving of support. I am so grateful.

Links:
Jane Marchant
@jane_marchant
National Endowment for the Arts

 
Guest UserThe Plaza Theater2024, writing