Guggenheim Fellowships for 2009 Announced

Nearly three dozen writers are among the 180 recipients

by Michael Coffey -- Publishers Weekly, 4/8/2009 9:38:00 AM

Edward Hirsch, the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, announced today that it has awarded 180 Fellowships to artists, scientists and scholars. The successful candidates were chosen from a group of almost 3,000 applicants.

Among the winners were nine poets, 11 fiction writers, two biographers and a dozen nonfiction authors. Notable in the book publishing community was a Fellowship awarded to Harmony v-p and executive editor John Glusman, who is researching a book about the sinking of the Arisan Maru, a Japanse merchant ship torpedoed by a United State submarine in WWII with 2,000 Allied POWs on board; nearly 1,800 perished, and the book will focus on eight survivors. One of Glusman's authors, Andrew X. Pham, also received a Fellowship.

Winners in poetry: Saskia Hamilton, Joseph Harrison, Terrance Hayes, Lyn Hejinian, Laura Kasischke, Barbara Ras, Lisa Russ Spaar, Larissa Szporluk, and Daniel Tobin. 

In fiction: Chris Abani, Chris Adrian, Stacey D'Erasmo, Ellen Feldman, John Haskell, Ken Kalfus, Marshall N. Klimasewiski, Richard Lange, Zachary Lazar, Fae Myenne Ng, and George Singleton. 

In biography:  Zachary Leader and Charles Marsh.

In nonfiction: Jabari Asim, Bruce Barcott, Paul Collins, Frances Fitzgerald, John A. Glusman, George D. Gollin, Susan Griffin, Diane McWhorter, Andrew X. Pham, Jessica Eve Stern, Nick Turse, and Jeff Wheelwright.

Click here for a full list of 2009 fellows by category.