The email arrived a few days ago. “Dear Erika Dreifus: Thank you for your application to NYFA’s Fellowship program. We are sorry that we will not be able to award you a Fellowship this year. We received a record number of applications this year….” You know the rest.
So now it is official: I have applied for fellowships unsuccessfully from the New York Foundation for the Arts in THREE genres: fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Now how many of you can say that?!
Watching my grandfather–a refugee from Nazism and a U.S. Army WWII veteran–kindle the Hanukkah candles in 1972. HANUKKAH
Since Hanukkah began last night, I planned to share something I posted here last year: this photo of my grandfather and me, accompanied by a link to the archived story of mine that was included on National Public Radio’s “Hanukkah Lights” broadcast back in 2011. That story, “Fidelis,” was on my mind again last year when I caught this article in The New York Times Magazine on the anniversary of a World War II battle (Tarawa) that is central to it.
Lo and behold, I returned from a Hanukkah celebration last night (to which I happened to wear, as I often do, a ring that belonged to my grandfather on a silver chain around my neck), to discover that “Fidelis” has been “re-upped” to be part of the 2014 “Hanukkah Lights” broadcast, too. Icing on this cake (or jelly doughnut, as the holiday case may be): NPR is calling the story “a classic” from its “vault.” To which all I can say is: Wow.
‘TIS THE SEASON: FOR LITERARY AWARDS
Last week I had the pleasure of attending two literary-award events. (more…)
