Professor awarded creative arts fellowship

Dan Albergotti, assistant professor of English, has been awarded a fellowship by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), a working retreat for visual artists, writers and composers near Amherst, Va. Albergotti will spend three weeks in July with 20 other fellows, focusing on creative projects.

Fellows are provided with a private bedroom, private studio and three prepared meals a day. Except for breakfast and dinner, there are no schedules or obligations, allowing fellows time to concentrate on their projects and exchange ideas with others.

VCCA fellows have received worldwide attention through publications, exhibitions, compositions, major awards and accolades, including MacArthur grants, Pulitzer Prizes, Guggenheim fellowships and Academy Award nominations.

Albergotti is a published poet whose work has appeared in Mid-American Review, Prairie Schooner and Southern Humanities Review. During his fellowship, he will work on poems for his second full-length manuscript, tentatively titled “Services for the Lords of the Other Worlds.”

His first manuscript, “The Boatloads,” was a finalist in the National Poetry Series open competition in 2002. Although not yet published, “The Boatloads” developed from Albergotti’s master’s thesis at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, which won the outstanding master’s thesis production award at the school.

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