Dustin Parsons wins Artist Fellowship from New York

Dustin Parsons

SUNY Fredonia Assistant Professor Dustin Parsons was awarded a prestigious and highly competitive $7,000 Artist Fellowship in the category of non-fiction literature from the latest cycle of the New York Foundation for the Arts awards.  

Only three percent of the total number of applicants were successful. Associate Professor of English Aimee Nezhukumatathil (and wife of Dustin Parsons) was named a finalist in the same category.

Professor Parsons said, "Winning this award comes at an instrumental time to help me finish my book project. The personal essays at the heart of this project center on questions of location and place and take up images of Kansas, Ohio, and New York landscape as well as the instruments of locating one's self such as maps and identity. It is such an honor to be chosen in such a highly competitive field."

A total of 105 Fellows were selected from a pool of 3,692 applicants in the categories of Crafts/Sculpture; Digital/Electronic Work; Nonfiction Literature; Printmaking/ Drawing/Book Arts, and Poetry.

The Artist Fellowship Program, now in its 26th year, is administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts with leadership support from the New York State Council on the Arts. They have awarded $26 million to date. Among those who received support at critical stages in their careers are: 2011 Pulitzer Prize winners Jennifer Egan (Fiction) and Zhou Long (Music); Doug Aitken; Junot Diaz; Todd Haynes; Barbara Kruger; Spike Lee; Christian Marclay; Marilyn Minter; Lynn Nottage, and Julie Taymor.