When I heard that Leah Griesmann had been awarded the Steinbeck Fellowship, a residence fellowship for fiction authors, I immediately wanted to know more about her thoughts as an author than on the program itself. Fellowships are a fantastic way for aspiring authors to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads while allowing a dedicated block of time for writing. They also present a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the writing process, and surround yourself with like-minded individuals. Fellowships aren't often mentioned outside an academic setting, so I wanted to dedicate a second blog post to the topic and hopefully inspire some of our readers to look into the possibility of a fellowship for their own writing. A quick internet search reveals several pages of writing fellowships available, and I encourage everyone to see if one out there might be a fit for your writing. Afterall, why would you pass up an opportunity to be paid to write before you have an agent or a book deal in hand? Here are Leah's thoughts on the Steinbeck Fellowship:

The benefits of the fellowship for me are time, inspiration, and support. There are two fellows, and we're both going to be working on book projects and checking in with the Steinbeck Center every couple of weeks. Definitely for me, the major advantage here for my writing is TIME.

 

I earned my MA in Creative Writing in 2005 and have been teaching writing and literature full time ever since. Teaching at university has been an exciting job for me and great for my writing, but it does keep me busy. As an assistant professor of English at Hanyang University in South Korea, I am currently teaching six classes. I took the job half way around the world in part because it offers a great vacation package during which I can squeeze in more than six weeks of uninterrupted writing time twice a year. Still, it seems just as I get fully engaged revising my project I go back to teaching again.

 

I applied for the Steinbeck Fellowship because I have two projects I am completing--a novel and a short story collection, for which I need a long space of uninterrupted time, as well as access to literary peers in and around San Francisco. I'm very excited about the fellowship because I will be able to fully concentrate on these projects with no outside commitments. I know that my hard work and dedication to improving as a fiction writer will serve me well during the residency because over the years of working on my projects I have developed a lot of discipline. I'm going to fully take advantage of the opportunity to revise and polish both of my books while collaborating with the Steinbeck Center and SJSU.