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In addition to the fourteen fellowships, fourteen artists will receive Professional Assistance Awards of $1,000 each for continued development of their work.

A panel of out-of-state artists and arts professionals reviews the anonymous applications and selects the artists who will receive Fellowships and Professional Assistance awards. Fellowship selections are based primarily upon the artistic excellence of the artists' work. Lesser criteria include the artists' professional achievements and the potential for the Fellowship to enhance the work of the artist.

Fellowships are awarded annually, with choreographers, interdisciplinary artists, creative non-fiction writers, screen and playwrights, writers of fiction, poets, and musical composers selected in even number years. Visual and media artists receive Fellowships in odd number years. Artists awarded Fellowships may not apply again for six years; however, those who received Professional Assistance Awards may reapply in the next eligible cycle.

The Kentucky Arts Council has played a crucial role in creating a flourishing environment for artistic creation and in making the arts more available to the people of Kentucky, through grants and services to arts organizations, schools, community groups, local governments, and individual artists. The Kentucky Arts Council is an agency of the Education Arts and Humanities Cabinet, established by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1965 to develop and promote support for the arts in Kentucky.

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NOTE TO EDITORS: Winners and interview contact information listed below.

Fellowship Award Recipients ($7500 awards)

CHOREOGRAPHY

Delilah Smyth
Choreography
168 Bellaire Ave #2
Louisville, KY 40206
Phone: 502-899-5522
Phone2: 502-583-3150

Delilah Smyth has several years of professional dancing experience with both the Lexington and Louisville Ballet companies. She recently discovered a passion for choreography, having successfully composed two pieces, Memories of Green and In My Head, for the Louisville Ballet Choreographer's Showcase. She is currently choreographing a piece that will incorporate quilt patterns and will be set to Bluegrass music.

FICTION

Constance Alexander Davis
Fiction
634 Robertson Rd.
South Murray, KY 42071
Phone: 270-753-9279
E-mail: cacalexander@hotmail.com

Constance Alexander Davis has written several successfully produced plays as well as numerous radio documentaries and commentaries. She is currently completing her first novel, Thirty-One Fat Ladies on a Bus.

Wanda Fries
Fiction
100 Rosemont St.
Somerset, KY 42503
Phone: 859-678-0137
E-mail: dwfries@charter.net

Wanda Fries' short stories have appeared in publications such as The Michigan Quarterly Review,the River City Review, and in Appalachian Heritage. She is a former Bread Loaf Scholar and received a Professional Development Award to attend Duke University's Writers Workshop. She has completed a novel, Ash Grove, and has begun work on another.

George Ella Lyon
Fiction
913 Maywick Dr.
Lexington, KY 40504
Phone: 859-278-3956
Phone2: 859-277-7144
E-mail: ginalyon2001@yahoo.com

George Ella Lyon has written numerous award-winning collections of poetry, twenty picture books and four novels for young readers, two plays, and her work was featured in the PBS series, "The United States of Poetry." She is currently at work on a new novel, Don't You Remember.

Liz Mandrell
Fiction
P.O. Box 241
Mount Sterling, KY 40353
Phone: 859-498-0172
Phone2: 606-783-2728
E-mail: emandrell@morehead-st.edu

Liz Mandrell has published a number of short stories in publications such as Short Stories: The Mammoth Anthology of Miniscule Fiction and The Georgia Review and has published essays in Cincinnati and Appalachian Heritage. She is also an English Instructor at Morehead State University.

Amy Purcell
Fiction
1135 Waterworks Rd.
Newport, KY 41071
Phone: 859-441-0390
E-mail: apurcell@one.net

Amy Purcell began writing at an early age, and her first short story, War Stories, was published in 1999 in "The Beloit Fiction Journal," and another short story, Open Wide, was published in "Feral Parakeets and Other Stories," a print-on-demand fiction anthology developed by the Cincinnati Writers' Project. She is currently working on a new collection of short stories.

Martha Stiles
Fiction
861 Hume-Bedford Rd.
Paris, KY 40361
Phone: 859-987-4158
E-mail: mbsparis@aol.com

As a writer, Martha Stiles has had a productive career with 11 books (mostly for children and young adults), 22 short stories, and 38 articles published. Her short stories have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Georgia Review, and the New Orleans Review, among many others. Her most recent children's book, Island Magic, was selected for the American Booksellers Association Pick-of-the-Lists 1999.

Kirkby Tittle
Fiction
1068 Everett Ave #1
Louisville, KY 40204
Phone: 502-479-5841
Phone2: 502-458-4028
E-mail: kirkbyt@earthlink.net

An editor and teacher, Kirkby Tittle's short stories have appeared in numerous journals and magazines such as The Louisville Review, the Southern Indiana Review, Reveille (Paris, France) and The Crescent Review. H e has published a novel, The Barbarian Parade (Hill Street Press) and is currently at work on two new novels.

MUSIC COMPOSITION

John Steffa
Music Composition
1500 Hermitage Place
Murray, KY 42071
Phone: 270-753-6985
Phone2: 270-762-3142
E-mail: john.steffa@murraystate.edu

John Steffa's music has been premiered and performed in the United States, Canada and South America. His work was recently presented at the Eighth International Music Festival in Bahia, Brazil and at the North American Saxophone Alliance Conference in Alabama. He is an Associate Professor of Music at Murray State University and writes music that utilizes nontraditional sound resources in collaboration with more traditional instruments.

PLAYWRITING

Lorna Littleway
Playwriting
P.O. Box 3463
Louisville, KY 40601
Phone: 502-561-2149
Phone2: 917-531-0396
E-mail: juneteenthlegacy@aol.com

In 2002, Lorna Littleway received the 2002 Sallie Bingham Award from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and a Dramatists Guild playwriting fellowship. She has written and directed several plays, three of which will be compiled into an anthology, Juneteenth Jambalaya. She is at work on a new one-woman play about Elizabeth Keckley, dressmaker and confidant to Mary Todd Lincoln. Lorna Littleway is the founder of the Juneteenth Legacy Theatre.

POETRY

Annette Allen
Poetry
3024 Falmouth Drive
Louisville, KY 40205
Phone: 502-485-1193
Phone2: 502-852-1298
E-mail: acalle01@louisville.edu

Annette Allen's poetry collection, Country of Light, received the Witte Award in 1995 and she has had approximately 50 poems published in other publications including, Word and Witness: 100 Years of North Carolina Poetry. She was selected as a Fellow of the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Vermont Studio Center and the Ragdale Foundation.

Sarah Gorham
Poetry
1637 Rosewood Avenue
Louisville, KY 40204
Phone: 502-451-4913
Phone2: 502-458-4028
E-mail: sarabandes@aol.com

Sarah Gorham has published three collections of poetry, including The Tension Zone which received the Four Way Books Award in Poetry in 1996. Her poetry has appeared in numerous periodicals including The Nation, American Poetry Review, Paris Review, and Southern Review, among many others. Sarah Gorham has also received fellowships from the Yaddo and MacDowell writer colonies.

Jonathan Greene
Poetry
P.O. Box 475
Frankfort, KY 40602-0475
Phone: 502-223-1858
E-mail: jgnomon@aol.com

Jonathan Greene has written for most of his life and has had 20 books published and over 250 publications in various journals and anthologies. He has received writing Fellowships from the Southern Federation of State Arts Agencies and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Jane Vance (recipient of the Irwin Pickett Fellowship)
Poetry
340 Morgan St.
Versailles, KY 40383
Phone: 859-873-5700
Phone2: 859-321-1950
E-mail: jane.vance@gte.net

Raised on a farm in Kentucky, Jane Vance began writing poetry at the age of 7. Her book of poetry, A Garden in Kentucky, was published in 1995 and more than 80 of her poems have appeared in various anthologies and journals such as the Sewanee Review, Hollins Critic, Southern Poetry Review, Harvard Magazine, and New Virginia Review, among many others.

Professional Assistance Awards ($1000 awards)