Author Edwidge Danticat will serve as judge for the 2018 Alumni Writer’s Residency. Edwidge has been a judge for the Scholastic Awards in the past, and will now lend her expertise to select the two residents.

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Create Dangerously, and Claire of the Sea Light. She is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2. She has written six books for children and young adults, Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama’s Nightingale, Untwine, as well as a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is a 2009 MacArthur fellow. Her next book, a work of nonfiction, The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story, was published in July 2017.

The Alumni Writer’s Residency provides two promising writers with a five-night stay in a suite at the historic Roosevelt Hotel in New York City to further their work—whether completing a current project or embarking on a new endeavor. Residency also includes a $1,000 award; an additional stipend up to $1,000 for travel to and from the residency; select meals, and opportunities to meet with literary professionals. Residents will be asked to share impressions of and photos from the residency with Alliance staff to share on social media, as well as complete a post-residency survey.

Eligibility:

• Must be a Scholastic Awards Alum
• Writers of poetry, fiction, prose, drama, journalism, memoir, and nonfiction are eligible to apply
• Currently enrolled high school and undergraduate students are not eligible
• Special consideration will be given to applicants who have not previously participated in a writer’s residency

The application opens on December 15 and closes February 26, 2018.