Jonathan Escoffery
Photo by Colwill Brown
Bio
Jonathan Escoffery’s writing has appeared in the Paris Review, AGNI, Pleiades, Salt Hill, the Caribbean Writer, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. His most recent honors include a Distinguished Story citation in The Best American Short Stories anthology, a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and Passages North’s Waasnode Fiction Prize. He has received fellowships and support from Aspen Words, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, the Somerville Arts Council, the Writers' Room of Boston, Kimbilio Fiction, the Anderson Center, Wellspring House, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and elsewhere. Escoffery earned his MFA in fiction from the University of Minnesota, where he was a DOVE Fellow and a COSP Fellow. He attends the University of Southern California’s PhD in Creative Writing and Literature Program as a Provost Fellow.
I am honored to join the proud legacy of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Literature Fellows. The news came at a time when I normally shut down my writing routine to pick up editing jobs in order to make ends meet, a consequence of which is losing weeks or months of writing time. With this award, I’ll be able to continue to prioritize my writing and remain deep in my manuscript. The years needed to complete a book-length project can take a toll, in nearly every way imaginable, and acknowledgment by an organization as esteemed and necessary as the NEA, paired with the practical implications of the award money, can sustain a writer beyond measure.