Fellowship: Norman Mailer Center

The Center and the Colony offers Fellowships for fiction, nonfiction and poetry writers during the second half of 2013. During a Fellowship period of three weeks, the mentoring faculty will be headed by three highly regarded writers. Greg Curtis will mentor Nonfiction, Meena Alexander, Poetry, and Jeffery Renard Allen the Fiction fellows, each of whom will be in residence.

The Colony’s fellowships are designed to facilitate a balance between a focus on individual work and a forum for discussion among emerging writers. Each year the fellowship program will be held at a location where Norman Mailer researched and began writing one of his books.  One Year, as an example, the fellowship program will be held in Utah whereThe Executioner's Song was researched.  In another year, the fellows will meet in Palm Springs, where Mailer researched The Deer Park.  In a third year the fellowship program will be held in Miami, where Mailer began his book Miami and the Siege of Chicago.

This year, 2013, from July 20 to August 10, Michael Mailer will host the Center's fellowship programs at Norman's home in Brooklyn Heights, New York. This is where Mailer lived for over 40 years and wrote many of his books. Afternoon readings and meetings in the evenings are scheduled in Mailer's living room -- in the very environment that Mailer himself experienced.  J. Michael Lennon, Mailer's offical biographer, will discuss Mailer's 1951 novel, Barbary Shore  (which is set in Brooklyn Heights), and provide the fellows with a walking tour of the area. In addition, attendees to become acquainted with the work of other Fellows and friendships established among writers in-residence often lead to collaborations and connections beyond the Colony.

In addition distinguished writers will from time to time, visit and share their professional experiences with the Fellows. Past years visitors have included Gay Talese, Da Chen, David Margolick, Sonia Sanchez, Don DeLillo, and editors from the New York Review of Books, Playboy and Vanity Fair,

Four applicants each from fiction, nonfiction and poetry, based on merit, will be chosen for this program. Each successful Fellow's award will cover full tuition and housing for the entire three week period of residency. 

More information here