Steve Almond

Steve Almond

Photo by Sheryl Lanzel

Bio

Steve Almond is the author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Against Football and Candyfreak. His debut novel, All the Secrets of the World will be published by Zando in 2022. His essays and reviews have appeared widely, in venues ranging from the New York Times Magazine to Poets & Writers to the George Strait newsletter. His short fiction has appeared in the Best American Short Stories, the Pushcart Prize, the Best American Mystery Stories, among others. He teaches creative writing at the Nieman Foundation and Wesleyan University, and lives with his family outside of Boston.

I don’t apply for a lot of fellowships. I figure there are other writers who can use the money more than me. Also, I can’t handle the disappointment. I take it personally, which is dumb, but there you have it. I applied for the National Endowment for the Arts [Fellowship] this time around at my wife’s urging, because we’ve been struggling to figure out how to pay for college for our three kids and live in an expensive part of the country and, at the same time, underwrite our creative work. For 30 years, I’ve been trying to make money as a full-time writer/teacher while also working on projects that, by design, have almost no chance of making money. It’s a constant hustle, and the tension between commerce and art was wearing me down. The grant will give me some time to work on a new collection of stories and a second novel. It took me 30 years (and many failed attempts) to write the first one; I’m now looking to shave that process down to, say, a decade. I realize that thousands of worthy writers apply for these fellowships every year, and only a few dozen get them. A lot of that has to do with luck, sensibility, and what the judges just ate for lunch. I’m grateful to the judges, and whatever it is they ate for lunch. At the same time, as someone who first applied for an NEA [Fellowship] more than two decades ago, I urge all other writers to be stubbornly patient at the keyboard, even in the face of reasonable doubt.