Tuesday, January 11, 2000

Wilmington, N.C. - Wendy Brenner, assistant professor in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, received a Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Brenner is one of only 35 recipients of this prestigious national award. The fellowships, which are $20,000, allow authors time to write, research, travel, and pursue general artistic advancement.

Brenner's award was based upon her forthcoming second collection of short stories, Soon It Will Work Everywhere.

"This award is a vote of support from fellow writers in my field. I am excited to receive national recognition for my work," said Brenner. She said the fellowship will allow her to devote more time to writing and hopes to complete Soon It Will Work Everywhere this summer. Brenner's first collection of short stories, Large Animals in Everyday Life, received the Flannery O'Connor Award from the University of Georgia Press in 1996. Her work has appeared in publications such as Southern Exposure, Mississippi Review, New England Review, Travel & Leisure, and Oxford American. She received her bachelor's degree in 1987 from Oberlin College and her master's degree in fine arts in 1991 from the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Since 1967, the National Endowment for the Arts has invested in American creativity through its literature fellowships, which support writers at crucial points during their careers. During this period, the agency has awarded more than $35 million to 2,337 writers, and sponsored work resulting in more than 2,200 books, including William Kennedy's Ironweed, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and Oscar Hijuelos's The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. This past year, the NEA received 908 applications from writers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, as well as Americans living abroad. Brenner, along with the other 35 fellowship winners in fiction and creative nonfiction, was selected by a nationwide panel composed of writers and others involved in artistic and cultural endeavors