2024-25 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipient
Columbia College Chicago
Chidera Nwume The Foundation Fund proudly introduced Chidera Nwume, the 2024 Friends of American Writers student scholarship winner, at the November luncheon. She is receiving $3000 from this fund towards her education this semester. She is currently enrolled in the MFA Writing program at Columbia College Chicago. She also is a graduate student instructor at the school since January, 2024 and worked as an Acquisition Assistant Editor for Allium, the Online Journal of Poetry & Prose, Fall 2024 issue. Her writings include the published short story, "Remember Me," which was longlisted for the Afritondo Short Story Prize in 2021.
It is a bittersweet award this year as Columbia College Chicago is dropping its MFA Writing program in June. The Foundation Fund has awarded 7 graduate students from Columbia with scholarships from $1200 to $3000 since 2017. Previously, awards have been given to writing students at National Louis University and Roosevelt University. The committee is currently researching new venues for deserving students.
Donations to the Foundation Fund are always welcome. As part of Friends of American Writers, a not for profit 501-C-(3) organization, all contributions are completely tax deductible.
2023-24 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipient
Columbia College Chicago
Alexandra Riseman About Me "I have studied creative writing for a long time now, and because of Columbia, I truly have found my confidence. I hope to not only produce creative non-fiction which explores my childhood and trauma, but I finally feel brave enough to explore fiction again. I want to create worlds and characters again that bring hope to the world. I believe that because of this scholarship, I'll truly be able to focus even more on my writing as well as my goal of publishing my work."
2022-23 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipient
Columbia College Chicago
Tyler Odeneal, an MFA candidate studying fiction writing at Columbia College Chicago, is the winner of this year's $3,000 scholarship. Tyler's fiction and poetry have either been published or will soon be published in Furrow Literary Magazine; Genre: Urban Arts; 580 Split; Masks Literary Magazine; and elsewhere. He was also a finalist for the 2021 Arthur Flowers Flash Fiction Prize.
Tyler's Columbia College Chicago advisor is Garnett Kilberg Cohen.
2021-22 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipient
Columbia College Chicago
Laura Hawbaker,who is currently working toward her MFA in fiction writing at Columbia College Chicago has a very impressive resume. She received a BA in fiction writing, also at Columbia, and an MA in linguistics from the University of Illinois Chicago. Laura is also the managing editor of MASKS Literary Magazine, which she founded while serving as the 2020/2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Columbia Library's Aesthetics of Research. In addition, she's the winner of the 2021 Tusculum Review Fiction Prize, and her essays have appeared in Bright Wall/Dark Room, PopMatters and Time Out Chicago. She has reported for The Chicago Tribune and NewCity Magazine as well.
Laura is now at work on a linked story collection entitled 25 Roommates.
2020-21 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipient
Columbia College Chicago
Annella Thomas for Columbia College Chicago. Annella is a poet and essayist who received her BA in poetry at Columbia and is now working on an MFA in nonfiction. She has been a contributing editor for the Columbia Poetry Review, which comes out annually; Punctuate, an online nonfiction magazine; and Hotel Amerika, a literary magazine which specializes in writing that is quirky and unconventional. All are magazines produced by Columbia College Chicago. Ms. Thomas lives in southern Illinois with her parents and her dog, Daisy.
Columbia College representative - Lisa Fishman, Associate Professor and former Poetry Program Director, is the author of six published books, most recently 24 Pages and other poems (Wave Books, 2015). Ms. Fishman also has several chapbooks to her name. Her Poetry has been widely published in such magazines as 1913, 6x6, Denver Quarterly, Volt, Colorado Review, Conduit, jubilat, and Omniverse. She is a 200-hour certified Alignment Yoga Instructor and will teach yoga and embodied poetics in Spring, 2019. Fishman lives on an orchard in southern Wisconsin and is a dual citizen of the U. S. and Canada. She holds a B. A. from Michigan State University and MFA from Western Michigan University.
2019-20 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipients
Columbia College Chicago
Ruby Orozco for Columbia College Chicago. ** Further information coming soon.
National Louis University
Michael Rossi is an award-winning English teacher at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville. For the past 15 years, he has empowered student writers through a variety of programs designed to showcase teenage voices. He is the founder of Neuqua's Monologue Show, which has staged hundreds of student-written performances, including several at Illinois' All-State Theater Festival. He is also the curator of his school's Writers' Week, a published poet, produced playwright, and author of two novels. Michael also is the recipient of the coveted Paris Cafe Writing Scholarship that entitles him to one week in Paris working with esteemed writing instructor Patricia Tennison. As a workshop participant, he will be writing in the same cafes and restaurants that Fitzgerald and Hemingway frequented. At National Louis, he has sought to hone his craft and discover new outlets for his own works. When he's not serving his community, Michael enjoys the loneliness of a ten-mile run and the company of his talented wife and creative children.
National Louis University representative - Joanne Koch.
2018-19 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipients
Columbia College Chicago
Samuel du Bois is a Master's of Fine Arts candidate at Columbia College Chicago. He is a Polish-American writer and was born in Chicago and raised near the Gary Steel mills in Northwest Indiana. He is co-founder and editor at the on-line literary journal Coordenadas and has won the Nopales con Cielo Award for non-fiction and fiction. He is currently completing his two novels: The Hospital and The Line.
Columbia College representative - Dr. Jenny Boully is a creative writing teacher at Columbia College Chicago and an accomplished author. Dr. Boully was born in Thailand and reared in Texas. She earned her PhD. in English from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Jenny Boully is the author of Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life (Coffee House Press).
National Louis University
Stephanie Rogers joined the Master's in Written Communication program in 2014, the year that she created Story Jam, a live lit and music show. Story Jam features a diverse array of storytellers, writers, musicians and performers. For the show, seasoned performers prepare a personal seven-minute story, and Stephanie composes a song for each story. The songs are played by the ten-piece Story Jam Band.
Stephanie took solo show and storytelling classes prior to joining the program and holds a bachelor's degree in theater from Northwestern. As she sought to dive deeper into creating her own stories for a solo show, she found the Written Communication program to be a perfect fit. She is currently working on her master's thesis on the origin and development of live lit performance, starting with a recent history of storytelling and the art of solo performance.
National Louis University representative - Joanne Koch directs the graduate writing program at National Louis University in Chicago. As an accomplished writer of many different types of written work, Dr. Koch is the ideal person to make the selection of a scholarship winner from National Louis University.
2017-18 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipients
Columbia College Chicago
Jessica Love is a candidate in the MFA in Fiction program at Columbia College Chicago. She earned her BA in Creative Writing at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee, where she was the editor of the school's literary magazine, Castings. As a graduate student at Columbia College, Jessica teaches Writing and Rhetoric. Originally from a small farm outside of Memphis, her own writing sets the fantastic against the realistic, rural everyday. Jessica is currently at work on a collection of short stories.
Columbia College representative - Patricia Ann McNair is an Associate Professor in the English and Creative Writing Department of Columbia College Chicago, where she received the Excellence in Teaching Award and a nomination for the Carnegie Foundation's U.S. Professor of the Year. Her short story collection, The Temple of Air, received the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award, Southern Illinois University's Devil's Kitchen Reading Award, and a finalist place in the Society of Midland Authors Awards.
National Louis University
Candace Nzingha Smith is a poet, creative non-fiction writer, certified copy editor, and self-published author. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Fashion Marketing and Brand Management. Candace also was the 2017 scholarship recipient for Paris Cafe Writing program. Her writing reflects her passion of bringing people together in love. She's currently pursuing her Master of Science degree in Written Communication at National Louis University.
National Louis University representative - Joanne Koch directs the graduate writing program at National Louis University in Chicago. Dr. Koch has previously written ten nonfiction books, a column for United Features syndicated to 200 papers and numerous magazine articles. Her real focus in recent years has been plays, musicals and screen writing. Her proudest achievement though, is the creative support she has given to emerging writers who have come through her graduate program and to see their own work published and produced.
2016-17 FAW Foundation Fund Scholarship Recipient
National Louis University
Jonathan Riesbeck attends National Louis University in the Master's in Written Communication Program. Jonathan has shown strong promise in his production of fiction and nonfiction playwriting and he has already been published in National Louis's annual literary collection, Mosiac.
Update on past winners
Kara Brinkman, 2016 Scholarship winner, was hired for a coveted Lyric Opera Internship. The FAW scholarship helped Kara complete her degree and write and outstanding screenplay as her thesis project.
Patrick Iovinelli, the 2015 Scholarship winner, completed his Master's in Written Communication and has published a young adult novel, Waiting for the Sun (World Castle Publishing, 2016).