Time to Reflect

Dear Simpsonista,

We have reached the end of another fruitful summer. This is a transitional time for us at the New Literary Project, and as such, we’d like to muse together on all that is changing.

Our inaugural Jack Hazard Fellows—creative writers teaching high school who were awarded $5,000 fellowships this summer in support of an ongoing project—are returning to their classrooms. They’ve shared thoughtful reflections on the summer months funded by their fellowships.

Looking forward towards fall, we are thrilled to announce our 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize Winner Lauren Groff’s upcoming residency in the Bay Area during the week of October 10th. She will be appearing in various venues and classrooms, and will be giving public readings. One big highlight will be Thursday, October 13th, in the Maude Fife Room at UC Berkeley. We’ll have more details forthcoming next month, so keep an eye out!

“Encouragement is the conduit to education. Where would any of us be if not for the encouragement of a teacher at some point in our lives? And where would I be now if not for the encouragement of the New Literary Project? As a result of its support, I completed my novel—all 157,000 words of it—last week.”

— Adam O. Davis

“The roots are planted, the memory awakened, and a commitment reborn: there is meaning in this work, in this kind of presence, and a fellowship like this restores some of what older teacher/writers like me can lose sight of in the busy-ness of the world. And with any luck, it will have stoked those creative fires, and sparked motion in the furnaces, and these projects will now roll on with this wonderful gift of time, space, and energy (and of course the money that made all of that possible!)”

— Andy Spear

“It is difficult and lonely to work on a project that exists only in your head for years on end without any external acknowledgement that what you are doing is worthy of the time you are devoting to it. Knowing that the judges of the fellowship saw potential both in my writing sample and in my novel overall gave me a huge boost of confidence.”

— Molly Montgomery

READ ON HERE

Thank you for your continued support of the all that New Literary Project does. We’ll leave you with some inspiration from Hell of a Book, 2022 JCO Prize finalist Jason Mott’s latest novel.

Anything worthwhile takes time. Maybe that's what time is for: to give meaning to the things we do; to create a context in which we can linger in something until, finally, we have given it something invaluable, something that we can never get back: time.

Sincerely,

Diane & Joe

New Literary Project is grateful for generous institutional support from philanthropic and corporate sponsors who, along with our many loyal individual donors, drive social change and make possible serving students, teachers, and writers across generations: Wood Family Foundation, Simpson PSB Fund, System Property, Literary Arts Emergency Fund through the Mellon Foundation, Rare Bird Books, and the Miner Anderson Family Foundation.

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