2 ASU alumni awarded fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts – ASU News Now
The National Endowment for the Arts celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2016. Their first act of the year was to award creative writing fellowships of $25,000 to provide writers with the time and space to create, revise, and research. From a pool of 1,763 applicants, just 37 were selected.
Two of this year’s recipients, Kevin Haworth and Vedran Husić, are graduates of the same program at Arizona State University: the Department of English’s master of fine arts program in creative writing. The Department of English is part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. 
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National Endowment for the Arts director of literature Amy Stolls said of the recipients: “These 37 extraordinary new fellows provide more evidence of the NEA’s track record of discovering and supporting excellent writers.”
Those at ASU who worked with Haworth and Husić as students were thrilled, but not surprised by their selection.
Professor of English Melissa Pritchard, who retired in December 2015, was on graduate committees for both alumni. She remembers them as, “extremely talented, highly intelligent, wildly driven writers.
“Kevin was in a graduate class of mine where we read novels, then practiced writing shadow ‘mini-novels.’ When Kevin read his aloud, we all realized he had a real novel, an important novel, on his hands. Unanimously, we urged him to write it.
“Vedran would read stories in workshop that would leave all of us stunned, unable to say a word. They were magnificent stories.”
Pritchard went on to say, “both Kevin and Vedran were extraordinary students, and have become extraordinary writers. I’m so proud of them.”
Kevin Haworth, a 1997 ASU graduate, is director of Carlow University’s MFA program in creative writing.
Vedran Husić, a 2013 ASU graduate, is pursuing a doctorate in creative writing at the University of Missouri, where he also teaches.
Haworth, a 1997 ASU grad, is the author of three books — “Famous Drownings in Literary History,” “The Discontinuity of Small Things” and “Far Out All My Life” — and co-editor of “Lit from Within: Contemporary Masters of the Art & Craft of Writing.” His essays and short stories have been published in Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, and The Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row, among other venues, and he writes a monthly column for Michigan Quarterly Review. Haworth has taught writing and literature at Arizona State University, Antioch Writers Workshop, 826 Michigan, Ohio University, and Tel Aviv University. He is the Director of Carlow University’s MFA in creative writing.
Husić, who received his ASU degree in 2013, has published fiction in Ecotone, Witness, North American Review, The Massachusetts Review, Blackbird, and elsewhere. A recipient of a Fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, he’s at work on a novel about the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Husic is pursuing a doctorate in creative writing at The University of Missouri, where he also teaches.
ASU’s program in creative writing, from which Haworth and Husić both graduated, recently celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015.
Since 1990, 81 of the 138 American recipients of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and Fiction were previous NEA creative writing fellows.
From a release by the National Endowment for the Arts, with contributions from ASU’s Jenny Irish.
Manager, marketing + communications, Department of English
480-965-7611 Kristen.LaRue@asu.edu
The faculty at ASU are dedicated to helping students achieve their goals, sometimes you just have to ask to get their help.This is true for Alexa Magee who went the extra mile outside of the classroom. Magee, who is a senior majoring in Global Studies, can attribute many of the opportunities she’s received to her initiative in reaching out to professors who shared her academic interests. “[T…
The faculty at ASU are dedicated to helping students achieve their goals, sometimes you just have to ask to get their help.
This is true for Alexa Magee who went the extra mile outside of the classroom. Magee, who is a senior majoring in Global Studies, can attribute many of the opportunities she’s received to her initiative in reaching out to professors who shared her academic interests. 
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“[The] professors at the School of Politics and Global Studies (SPGS) are some of the best and most supportive faculty members at ASU. Through my global studies professors, I have gained access to some of the most unique and valuable academic opportunities available. I not only found a subject I was interested in pursuing as a career — my professors helped me take this interest to the next level. From speaking to friends and colleagues at other universities, this level of support is unique to SPGS.”
Alexa has worked with a number of School of Politics and Global Studies faculty outside of the classroom. In 2011, she worked as a research assistant to George Thomas, a professor in SPGS, studying religious rights cases in regional human rights courts. After that, Magee joined Victor Peskin, an associated professor in SPGS, as a research assistant examining the budget and activities of the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.
“Both experiences not only helped me learn more about the specific research topics, but also made me more confident in my interest in a career in law,” Magee said. “The information I learned helped me in class and provided me with important context for my internships both in the US and abroad.”
Following up her work within the School, Magee joined the Center on the Future of War as a student researcher. Through working with Daniel Rothenberg, a School of Politics and Global Studies professor and co-director of the center, Magee learned about armed conflict from a multidisciplinary perspective.
“Future of War fellows and student researchers come from many different academic backgrounds, bringing different insights to the challenges of regulating and conducting future wars.”
Magee took the experience she gained as a researcher on her trip abroad to The Hague in Netherlands. The Hague is the home of the U.N.’s International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Being in The Hague allowed Alexa to meet people from across the world — from Russia and Ethiopia to Tajikistan.
While in the Netherlands, Magee was a Media Office and Outreach Programme intern with the International Criminal Tribunal. She also had the opportunity to be a speaker at Hague Talks, which is a meeting place to discuss new ideas and perspectives regarding peace and justice.
“Being a speaker at Hague Talks was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences during my time abroad,” Magee said. “My talk was connected to The Third Hague Peace Conference, which focused on promoting humanity in times of war and supporting the development of international peace … . If it was not for speaking at Hague Talks, I do not know how else I would have learned from and connected with them.”
Assistant Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications, College of Global Futures
480-727-9901 moxford@asu.edu
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