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"GODFATHER" AWARDS $50,000 TO WOMAN WRITER

Award announcement at Santa Fe celebration

SANTA FE, New Mexico—Although he's not the "Godfather" of soul, Lee Gutkind, the man Vanity Fair magazine dubbed the "Godfather" of creative nonfiction, is making somebody feel good. And that somebody is the third annual $50,000 Gift of Freedom award recipient. The $50,000 Gift of Freedom is awarded annually to one woman writer or artist through the passionate efforts of A Room of Her Own (AROHO), a public nonprofit foundation.

On Tuesday, June 8, 2004 AROHO, in collaboration with the Southwest Literary Center, a division of Recursos de Santa Fe, celebrated the Gift of Freedom recipient and the three-member judging panel: Lee Gutkind, Toi Derricotte, and Kim Barnes at Site Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The judging panel read selections from their work, discussed the genre of creative nonfiction, and answered audience questions.

Lee Gutkind is founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction, the only quarterly creative nonfiction publication, and author of eight published creative nonfiction books including Many Sleepless Nights, The World of Organ Transplantation, Stuck in Time: The Tragedy of Childhood Mental Illness, and, most recently, Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather. Considered the "Godfather of Creative Nonfiction" by Vanity Fair magazine, Mr. Gutkind is also credited by Harper’s magazine as the founder of the creative nonfiction movement. Former Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh and co-founder of their MFA program in creative nonfiction, Mr. Gutkind is currently professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh. In addition, Mr. Gutkind is also the Director of the Creative Nonfiction Writer's Conference at Goucher College in Baltimore and an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a published novelist, and an NPR contributor.

Toi Derricotte is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and two National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowships. Her memoir, The Black Notebooks, was New York Times’ Notable Book of the Year for 1998 and was nominated for the PEN Martha Albrand Award for the art of the memoir. The Black Notebooks is also a recipient of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association Nonfiction Award. Her poetry books include The Empress of the Breath House, Natural Birth, Captivity, and Tender, winner of the 1998 Patterson Poetry Prize. Ms. Derricotte is a Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and she is cofounder of Cave Canem, the historic first workshop/retreat for African-American Poets.

Kim Barnes is author of the memoir In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country, a finalist for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in the nonfiction category, a finalist for the PEN Martha Albrand Award, and recipient of the 1995 PEN/Jerard Fund Award. Ms. Barnes is an author and editor of nonfiction, fiction and poetry, whose work has appeared in numerous journals including Shenandoah, Georgia Review, and Folio. Ms. Barnes has published one other book of nonfiction, Hungry for the World, and is coeditor of Circle of Women: An Anthology of Contemporary Western Women Writers. Making her fiction debut in 2003 with her novel Finding Caruso, Ms. Barnes is currently at work on another collection of nonfiction and a second novel entitled Becoming Paradise.

The celebration was moderated by Ron Chapman, KUNM 89.9 FM's award-winning literary conversation program host. During the celebration, the Gift of Freedom recipient read selections from her work. The panel’s selection was based on the recipient's demonstrated talent and commitment to her writing as well as her concrete plan for her creative nonfiction project, which she completes in her two-year grant period.

The celebration was the culmination of a two-year wait for almost four hundred and fifty women who submitted their creative nonfiction project plans and grant applications in hopes of attaining the coveted $50,000 two year grant.

AROHO collaborates with the Southwest Literary Center in order to promote a mutually shared vision of excellence in literature.

The Southwest Literary Center honors and builds upon Santa Fe's resources to serve writers, readers, and literary audiences. Regarded as one of the main literary centers in the Southwest, the Center presents the Santa Fe Writers Conference, the Writers Readings Series, the New Mexico Discovery Competition, and other programs. The Southwest Literary Center is a division of Recursos de Santa Fe, a private, not-for-profit organization, which presents nationally recognized seminars and conferences in arts, sciences, letters, and humanities. For more information visit www.Recursos.org

INTERVIEWS, PHOTOS, AND FURTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

Contact Lindsay Lindsay@ARoomOfHerOwnFoundation.org