VCCA Opens 2013 Wachtmeister Award in Poetry

The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) is currently accepting applications for the 2013 Wachtmeister Award. The biennial prize, which is offered in alternating genres, will be given this year to a poet.

The award includes a fully funded residency of up to thirty days at VCCA, a retreat for writers, visual artists, and composers located on a 450-acre estate at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, approximately sixty miles south of Charlottesville. The winner will also receive a $1,000 honorarium and travel reimbursement of up to $750. The total value of the award, which includes a private bedroom, private workspace, and three meals a day, is $7,150. 

Applicants for the Wachtmeister Award must have worked professionally for the previous fifteen years, and must have published at least two full-length poetry collections. Applicants should submit three copies of up to five poems (totaling no more than ten pages), the application form, and curriculum vitae, along with a brief biography and statement of purpose, by September 30. Poets who have not previously attended VCCA are eligible.

Originally called the VCCA Award for Excellence, the Wachtmeister Award is endowed by VCCA board member Linda Wachtmeister and is administered by the VCCA Fellows Council. The award is given to support writers, visual artists, and composers whose achievements in the arts are widely recognized.

Poet and fiction writer Ha Jin, whose most recent book is the short story collection A Good Fall (Pantheon, 2009), last received the Wachtmeister Award in writing in 2004. The author of six novels, four short story collections, and four books of poetry, Jin has received the National Book Award, a PEN/Faulkner Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Open year-round, the VCCA offers residencies of two weeks to two months and accommodates twenty-five artists at a time. Residents may also use the facilities of nearby Sweet Briar College. Since its founding in 1971 by writers Elizabeth Coles Langhorne and Nancy Hale, over 4,000 writers, artists, and composers have attended residencies at VCCA.

For an application form and complete guidelines, or for more information about residencies at VCCA, visit the website.