This is a very legit and well-respected organization. The fellowship, I can assure you, is not a scam and probably well worth the effort of entering if you want to take the time and effort (but it's not easy-the above poster is right!). The only drawback is that the fellowship is EXTREMELY competitve. Also, as with most "literary" organizations, their bias is toward literary rather than, say, genre writing. In other words, if you're an MFA graduate and love writing in the tradition of Virginia Woolf, you might have a fair shot-otherwise, probably not.
Do you really think that only literary authors have a shot at this award? I am and sent in a sample of my children's story and think it's a great example of my quality of work, but it's definitely not literary. I didn't see anything in their site proclaiming them to be straight up literary supporters. One of them has a MFA, I know I saw that mentioned. I really hope that they are open to new writers who might not have degrees in Fine Arts.
But...winning this competition is an excellent credential and can only be a plus for anyone's writing career.
That is definitely a plus to giving the application all you've got. I know I did and it was not easy writing the essays which I hope are persuasive enough that they will take a chance on me. Part of me thinks because they awarded the sculpter the grant that maybe people like me do have a chance. Am I deluding myself or do you think that they might give unknowns a chance?
As for many claiming they have not heard of the past recipients...keep in mind that most who enter this competition, like the biggest majority of us, are struggling writers trying to get established. You probably will not have heard of most of these people-yet-because as we all know it takes time to establish a writing career and a literary reputation. There would be little reason or incentive for an established "name" writer to enter a competition like this, so therefore the emphasis on having heard of the past winners doesn't seem to me a strong logic on which to base the merit of the competition. Most of these women are just getting their careers established.
I think you're right about the reason that they've not broken out into the writing world in ways that we can easily look them up online and see the fruits of their labor. Thank you for posting blackbird, I hope you don't mind sharing your take on this organization with me on the above issues, I really appreciate what you posted too. I just knew that they were legit and that I wouldn't find negative posts about them because they host the retreat. I would love to go to one, but I doubt I can-unless I won of course, then I would make it happen no matter what.
What other grant opportunities are there out there for us aspiring authors? I remember Mathew Lesko had mentioned getting a ten thousand dollar grant to write a novel, but after getting his book from the library I was unable to find that particular grant information.