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November 12, 2007

Micah Perks awarded NEA Creative Writing Fellowship

By Scott Rappaport (831) 459-2495; srapp@ucsc.edu

Associate professor of literature Micah Perks has been awarded a $25,000 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The fellowship is given to "published creative writers and translators of exceptional talent in the areas of prose and poetry." Perks is one of 37 recipients who received the award out of a pool of 1,700 applicants.

Perks received the fellowship for her novel-in-progress, The Captivity and Restoration of My Mother and Me. Set in a post 9/11 United States at war with Iraq and also during King Phillip's War in the 17th century, the novel moves back and forth between Mary Rowlandson, the author of the first book written by a woman in the New World (a captivity narrative), and a contemporary fictional woman. It focuses on their hunger, as well as their sense of alienation and connection to their respective communities. "This is a novel that asks the question: Can a hungry woman take food out of another's mouth and still be a good woman?" said Perks.

Perks is the author of a novel, We Are Gathered Here, and a memoir, Pagan Time, plus numerous short stories for such magazines as Zyzzyva and Massachusetts Review. Her stories have twice been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and she is the recipient of a Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts grant and two fellowships at the Blue Mountain Center for the Arts. Perks recently completed another novel, Violent Ann. She co-directs the creative writing program for the Literature Department and is co-provost of Kresge College.

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