The Virginia G. Piper Global Residency Fellowship
May 10 – 27, 2018 in Singapore, Hong Kong, & Taipei
Founded in 2014, the Virginia G. Piper Global Residency Fellowship was a competitive, $5,500 fellowship providing graduate students in ASU's Creative Writing program with the opportunity to study abroad in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taipei.
About the Global Residency Fellowship
The Residency program was designed to challenge MFA students with dynamic educational experiences, to encourage deep cultural engagement, to inspire generative and innovative new writing, and to provide students with the tools to contextualize a wide array of international writing within their own life-long study and creative practice.
The purpose of the residency was to teach emerging writers about international perspectives and writing opportunities, and strategies for writing descriptive, detail-rich settings. It also examined the dangers and challenges of writing about another place or culture that is not one's own, while providing guidance on how to write responsibly and avoid appropriation and exploitation.
In the place of traditional workshops, the residency featured craft lectures, generative writing exercises, and educational excursions to cultural events, parks, temples, sanctuaries, and other sites for environmental and place-based writing sessions. In addition to concentrating on poetry and fiction, the residency explored the crossovers between poetry, fiction, memoir, nonfiction, journalism, visual art, and travel writing.
Global Residency Fellowship Faculty
The residency courses and itinerary were led by program director Angie Dell, Managing Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and Matt Bell, Creative Writing Faculty in Fiction at ASU. Exploratory and conversational courses were taught by prominent and celebrated local writers who are knowledgeable about their fields and about their city's contemporary concerns, history, literary trends, publishing scene, and diverse communities.
Featured faculty for the 2018 program included writers and professionals from or based in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taipei: Alvin Pang, Amanda Lee Koe, Tania De Rozario, Cyril Wong, Kenny Leck, Balli Kaur Jaswal, Christine Chia, Dana Lam, Daryl Qilin Yam, Pooja Nansi, Shubigi Rao, Jason Wee, Lawrence Lacambra Ypil, James Shea, Nicholas Wong, Louise Law Lok Man, Chris Song, Karissa Chen, and Ye Mimi.
Preparation and Special Commitments
Fellowship recipients were also required to meet once per month with Angie Dell and Matt Bell during the spring semester to help prepare for their engagement abroad and to develop an introduction to global literature, particularly works from Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taipei.