WCDH Awards Moondancer Fellowship to Rachel Pittman

The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is pleased to announce the winner of the 2022 “Moondancer” fellowship. Rachel Pittman was selected from twenty-four applications received from writers across the U.S. The fellowship was open to poets, fiction writers, playwrights, essayists, columnists, memoirists, and screenwriters who expressed their love of nature and concern for the environment through their writing. Pittman’s writing proposal and work sample were selected by the judges as rating highest for literary merit and likelihood of publication. Pittman will receive a two-week residency at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow.

Rachel Pittman’s poetry has appeared in miniskirt magazine, Stillpoint Literary Magazine, Whale Road Review, Von Aegir Literary and Gingerbread House. Her fiction has appeared in Gingerbread House and Helix Magazine. Her work has been honored with the John Wood Poetry Prize. Learn more at www.rachelerinpittman.wixsite.com.

Pittman will be a writer-in-residence at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in summer 2022, when she will work on a chapbook length poetry manuscript. Pittman describes it as, “poems that interrogate the self as well as readers, poems that ask how we are navigating through the rapidly changing world, and how we will nurture this world, our home, as it has nurtured us.”

Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow Assistant Director, Jeanne Glass, said, “It is an honor and a privilege to be able to provide a fellowship to a writer with so much talent and passion for nature and sensitivity to our changing environment. I know that she will find, as so many of our writers do, that when it comes to writing, time at Dairy Hollow is magical and the Eureka Springs environment is very inspirational.” Pittman said, “I'm grateful for this opportunity to create space and time for this project. I write about the delicate tension between modern human presence and the ecosystems and rhythms that have existed long before our industrial arrival. I write odes to celebrate the natural world, as well as laments to honor what has been lost. From Georgia to Louisiana, I've never stopped looking up at the trees, peering into lakes and rivers, seeking a glimpse of wonder.”

For more information about sponsoring a fellowship in the genre and/or area of interest you are passionate about, visit www.writerscolony.org/sponsor-a-fellowship.

The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is “to nurture writers of all backgrounds, genres, and levels of experience in a supportive environment that builds community, stimulates new thinking, energizes creative expression, and optimizes productivity.” Since opening its doors to writers in 2000, the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow has made a lasting impact on the arts and literary communities hosting over 1,800 writers from 48 states and 13 countries. For more information, please visit www.writerscolony.org or call (479)253-7444.