The Lark has announced that Mary Hamilton, author of We Three, The Plan, One of the Women and The Building and Unbuilding of the Saxophone Sunset, will be the recipient of the Jerome New York Fellowship for 2015-2017.
Hamilton, selected from a pool of 194 applicants, succeeds Jackie Sibblies Drury as The Lark's second Jerome Fellow in New York City supported by the Minnesota-based Jerome Foundation.
The fellowship is designed to provide financial, artistic and career support to an emerging writer of extraordinary ability, promise and vision. Hamilton will be awarded stipends of $25,000 in her first year and $15,000 in the second. The Lark will support Hamilton along a self-determined creative path, providing access to an extensive toolbox of programs that include onsite and offsite workshops and residencies. In addition to full artistic support at The Lark, the fellowship includes an Opportunity Fund of $5,000 to support travel and research. Hamilton will meet with Artistic Director
John Clinton Eisner and other program staff regularly for career and project planning. She will also take part in "Business of Art: A Financial Boot Camp for Playwrights," a financial literacy program offered by The Lark and Playwrights of New York (PoNY) that provides business and entrepreneurial training for writers.
Hamilton was the 2005-09 recipient of the Iowa Arts Fellowship and has been a member of Play Penn, Youngblood, I-73, New Georges' The Jam, Play Penn Theater Conference and Wordbridge. Hamilton commented, "The Jerome's financial and artistic support will allow me to prioritize writing as a job for the first time since having my daughter. To get to do what you want to do, not as a crazy pastime that you spend most of your time financing with other gigs, but as the actual thing you are doing, is an awfully validating feeling."
About the Jerome New York Fellow, The Lark's Director of Onsite Programs
Lloyd Suh remarks, "Mary has a distinctive, brave and honest artistic voice. This is a critical point in her career, as she has been balancing her extraordinary talent with substantial family and work responsibilities. We're honored to welcome her into our community of artists as part of an expanding roster of life-sustaining fellowships."
This fellowship for emerging writers was inspired by the success of the groundbreaking Playwrights of New York ("PoNY") Fellowship, a partnership between The Lark and PoNY, Inc., founded by Lark trustee
Sandi Goff Farkas, that has helped advance the careers of
Carson Kreitzer,
Samuel D. Hunter,
Katori Hall,
Dominique Morisseau,
Tommy Smith, and A.
Rey Pamatmat. The Jerome and PoNY fellowships are part of an ongoing, long-term plan by The Lark to sustain fellowships and programs that provide economic stability for playwrights at different times in their careers. Other fellowships in this portfolio support early- and mid-career writers, women's voices, Middle Eastern voices and emerging artists of color.?
