GLA Arts & Letters Fellowship - Creative Writing Track
You can select the Creative Writing Track as a GLA Arts & Letters Fellow.
What is the Creative Writing Track?
The GLA Arts & Letters Fellowship for Creative Writing is about pushing your abilities as a writer.
Stories shape the memories of our lives. When you tell someone about who you are, you tell them in the framework of story. Writers have long sought out the difficult, emotional, exciting, and polarizing subjects.
You can’t just sit in a blank room and bang out a novel that will change the world. You need to experience the world and let those experiences shape your writing.
The Creative Writing Track of an Arts & Letters Fellowship requires accepted participants to complete pre-program, on-program, and post-program assignments or projects. Learn more about each below!
Fellowship Components
While preparing for your trip and the story or essay you’ll write, you’ll need to do some research into writers that have come before and analyze one of several books or short story collections for creative inspiration and learning.
Once you’re finished reading the book you choose, you will be asked to answer the questions in the corresponding worksheets. This worksheet must be submitted before you leave for your program.
At the end of the worksheet, there will be space for your project proposal. The final creative writing piece that you will turn in for your final project is the most important aspect of the Fellowship. Will you write a short story, a personal essay, a collection of poems? The choice is completely up to you! This is your chance to explore the type and style of writing that you think will best convey the story you’re trying to tell. If you have questions or ideas that you’d like to run by the Fellowship Committee, just send us an email.
Once on your program, you will be asked to think about what type of story you want to tell.
First, you will decide if you want to create a fiction or nonfiction piece. Is this more of an essay or a short story? First person, third person? Is it about the other students, your own personal experience, the experiences of the locals you’re meeting, something entirely different and unique? These are all things you’ll need to think about while in country.
As part of your fellowship learning in-country, we will recommend that you keep a journal during your time at the program. Not only will it give you reference material for your story, but the best way to come up with story ideas and angles is to put pen to paper and start writing. It will also focus your vision for what type of story you want to make when you get back home. If you suddenly come up with an interesting idea while journaling, write it down in the margins!
This will help you as you complete your final project post-program.
Once you get back home, it will be time to start writing your story. You will have time to review your journal and collect your thoughts from your experience to help inform your writing process. There is a lot that you can forget about in a couple weeks of intense, exciting adventure while in a different country.
You final project will be outlined in greater detail in your Fellowship Curriculum, which you will receive upon acceptance as an Arts & Letters Fellow in the Creative Writing Track.
Completion of your final creative writing project will be the capstone to your fellowship and an incredible highlight you can feature on upcoming college applications and beyond.
How To Apply
If you wish to apply, please fill out the Arts & Letters Fellowship Application and select the Creative Writing Track.
Fellowship applications are free. There is a Fellowship Fee you will be charged if you are accepted as a Fellow into this track.
*Please note: You must have a Google account (Gmail) to access the application and apply. If you don’t have one yet, creating a Google account is easy and takes only a few minutes. Click here to learn how.
Fellow are awarded...
A Certificate of Achievement
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A Custom Metal Pin Honoring Your Achievement
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A Recommendation Letter from our Executive Director
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Add ‘GLA Fellow’ to Your College Application
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*upon completion of the fellowship curriculum
