Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon and The MacDowell Colony have revealed a new fellowship, funded by an anonymous donor, that will be given in honor of literary agent Charlotte Sheedy.
The $200,000 endowment will fund an annual residency of up to two months at The MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. Inspired by Sheedy’s push to discover diverse voices, The Charlotte Sheedy Fellowship will be given to writers that write about people from across racial and cultural boundaries.
“The MacDowell Colony commits itself, every day, to supporting, fostering, and nurturing diverse artists in their daily struggle to make art,” Chabon said at a ceremony where he revealed the new award. “That commitment is written into the Mission Statement. It’s been coded into MacDowell’s DNA from the day in 1954 that James Baldwin walked into Baetz Studio and got down to work.”