Fellowships
Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing offers several annual fellowships. Whether funding students or community artists, we are dedicated to investing in literary artists. By fostering artistic growth and professional development, we aim to nurture future changemakers in the literary arts.
Open Opportunities
Opportunities close Friday, March 13, 2026 @ 11:59 PM. Please view fellowship details for exact dates and times.
Scholar in Creative Writing
A $5,000 summer stipend to support a 1st or 2nd year ASU MFA student in creative writing in completing a poetry or fiction manuscript or another significant literary arts project.
Fellowship for Cultural Exchange in the Literary Arts
A $5,000 stipend to support a significant literary project with a cross-cultural, multicultural, or international focus. Open to individuals or small teams based in Arizona, including ASU students. ASU faculty are not eligible.
Professional Development Fund
A stipend of up to $1,500 to support current ASU MFA students in creative writing in accessing professional development opportunities.
Submission and Reading Fees Fund
A stipend of up to $350 each year for ASU MFA students in creative writing to assist in covering reading and submission fees.
Meet our judge
Christopher Kondrich is a poet, writer, and editor. His third book, Tread Upon, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in April 2026. He is also the author of Valuing (University of Georgia Press, 2019), which won the National Poetry Series and was selected by Library Journal as a Best Poetry Book of 2019. His poetry appears widely in such venues as The Atlantic, The Believer, The Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, and The Yale Review. He has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He currently teaches in the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland, as well as in Eastern Oregon University’s low-residency M.F.A. in Creative and Environmental Writing. Co-editor of Creature Needs: Writers Respond to the Science of Animal Conservation (University of Minnesota Press, 2025) and an associate editor for 32 Poems, he lives in Maryland with his partner and daughter.
Fellowship Recipients
Fellowship for Cultural Exchange in the Literary Arts Recipients for 2024
Maya Chari - The Sen Sisters, Annotated
“Lovely historical look into the background of the three Sen sisters and how their individuality interweaves with the narrator's own family story. The use of footnotes here offers vulnerable and bitingly humorous looks at the intersection of the Sen family, Chari's family, fact, and fiction.” – Phillip B. Williams, 2024 Piper Fellowship Guest Judge
Frankie Concepcion - Writing Myself Home: Funding for the Completion of a Memoir on Filipino Folklore, History, Migration, and Loss
“Spiritual, devastating exploration of faith and the many violences that haunt young girls into womanhood. Interrogates what happens when sexist morality becomes a weapon, making the interior of a girl self the most reliable shield and fragile fortress.” – Phillip B. Williams, 2024 Piper Fellowship Guest Judge
Aida Esmeralda - Una lenta playa de mi matria // or // Huellas de caracol // or// El mar de donde fluye nuestro aliento (A Slow Beach of My Motherland or Seashell Prints or The Sea From Which Our Breath Flows)
“Breathtaking audacity, this work is an anti-colonial call-out echoing J Michael Martinez and Aurielle Marie. Visceral, intelligent, and unflinching work whose slick enjambments/formal play and multi-genre splicing kept me invested. – Phillip B. Williams, 2024 Piper Fellowship Guest Judge
Scholar in Creative Writing Fellowship Recipients for 2024
Judge’s Statement:
“What attracted me to all of these works is how close to "finished" they all felt, not in a way that one has reached an apex in career, rather that one has reached a formidable height that demands space and time for more nurturing. Each brief portfolio made me want to read more pages, learn more about these poetic speakers and curious narrators whose impeccable intelligence and wholly original voices fill a void in me that has lasted for years: a desire for ambition and more risk. I am grateful to have read this work and look forward to watching these writers' artistic endeavors bloom.” – Phillip B. Williams, 2024 Piper Fellowship Guest Judge on the Scholar in Creative Writing Fellowship Recipients
Andrew Hudson
- Nights of Paper, Days of Glass
Zack Lesmeister
- AGGOT
Jabini Emad
- Displaced: Stories & Essays
Ames O’Neill
- Belly and Other Stories
Emily Khilfeh
- NABLUS
In 2024, the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing provided ASU students with over $16,000 in funds to pursue creative writing professional development opportunities. Take a look at some of the residencies, fellowships, and more that they’ve attended!
- Ragdale Foundation Residency
- GrubStreet's Muse & the Marketplace Conference
- Abroad Writers’ Conference
- Community of Writers Summer Workshop
- Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference
- Changemaker Authors Conference
- Scifi Economics Residency
