APSU Professor and Poet Falconer Awarded Prestigious NEA Fellowship

Clarksville, TN – Dr. Blas Falconer, a local poet and an associate professor of English at Austin Peay State University, has been awarded a prestigious creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts.

His work was selected from among 1,063 applicants as deserving of the honor, which brings with it an award of $25,000. The NEA’s creative writing fellowships are meant to encourage the production of new works of literature by providing writers with the time and financial support to write.

The NEA was established by Congress in 1965, and it has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities.

The fellowship marks the second major recognition Falconer has received in the last two years. In 2009, he was named the recipient of the Maureen Egan Writers Exchange Award. That award gives emerging writers the opportunity to interact with the literary community in New York City.

Writers of poetry and fiction are annually chosen from one state to participate in the competition. To be eligible, writers must not have more than one full-length book in publication.

Falconer earned his Ph.D. in creative writing and literature at the University of Houston and has taught at APSU since 2003. He is the author of “A Question of Gravity and Light,” a collection of poems published by the University of Arizona Press in 2007.

For more information, contact the Austin Peay State University Department of Languages and Literature at 931-221-7219.