Rowe named New York Public Library Cullman Center fellow

Australian writer Josephine Rowe has been named one of the 2021–2022 fellows of New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

Rowe is one of 15 academics, literary artists and independent scholars selected for the annual fellowship from a pool of 506 applicants from 48 countries. The four other fiction writers chosen for the fellowship are David Wright Faladé, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Maaza Mengiste and Madeleine Thien.

The author of 2016 novel A Loving Faithful Animal (UQP) and short story collections Tarcutta Wake (UQP) and Here Until August (Black Inc.), Rowe will use her fellowship to research a new novel that follows a lifelong friendship based upon art and activism, set in Tasmania, Sydney, New York and Rome. She has received fellowships from the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, and the B R Whiting Studio in Rome, and her books A Loving Faithful Animal and Here Until August are published in the US by independent press Catapult.

During the term of the fellowship, which runs from September through May 2021, the fellows will have access to the research collections and resources of the New York Public Library, as well as the assistance of its curatorial and reference staff. Fellows also receive a stipend and the use of a private office in the Cullman Center’s quarters at the New York Public Library ‘s Stephen A Schwarzman Building.

A statement from the New York Public Library said that although the library’s research centres remain temporarily closed to the public due to Covid-19, the current fellows, ‘following rigorous safety protocols, have had access to their offices at the Center throughout this fellowship year, and the library expects the new fellows will as well’.

Category: Awards Local news