AUSTIN, Texas—The winners of the Dobie Paisano writing fellowships for 2001-2002 are Patricia Page, a novelist who is a former Texas resident now living in Pescadero, Calif., and Mylene Dressler, a novelist from Houston.
The fellowships, sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters, allow writers to spend six months at Paisano, the late author J. Frank Dobie’s 265-acre retreat west of Austin, now owned and maintained by UT Austin.
Page, who will hold the Ralph Johnston Memorial Fellowship, will begin residence at Paisano in September. Dressler will hold the Jesse Jones Writing Fellowship and begin residency at Paisano in March 2002.
Page, a free-lance writer of fiction, non-fiction, children’s stories, textbooks, and business and technical publications, was educated at the University of Houston (B.A. and M.A. with honors). Her first novel, Hope’s Cadillac was published by W.W. Norton in 1996. She was a Yaddo Fellow in 1987, 1988 and 1998 and was a writer-in residence at the Centrum Center for the Arts in Port Townsend, Wash., in 1989.
Page will be working on her third novel, which is set in Oaxaca. The first and last chapters already have been published as short stories.
Dressler has lived in Houston since 1989, with several periods of residence in Texas before then. She received her Ph.D. from Rice University in 1993 and was an assistant professor of English at the University of St. Thomas last year. She is the author of two novels, The Medusa Tree, published by MacMurray and Beck, 1997, and The Deadwood Beetle, to be published by BlueHen/Putnam in September.
Dressler plans to work on her third novel, a contemporary tragedy set in a small, fictional town along a great southern river.
Scott Blackwood of Austin and Rosa Shand, formerly of Austin and now of Spartanburg, S.C., were the runners-up.
Applications for the next Dobie Paisano fellowships will be available after Oct. 1 from Dr. Audrey N. Slate, director, Dobie Paisano Fellowship Project, J. Frank Dobie House, 702 E. Dean Keeton St., Austin, Texas, 78705. Phone: 512-471-8542; E-mail: aslate@mail.utexas.edu. A down-loadable application and information for applicants will be available at: <http:/www.utexas.edu/ogs/Paisano> after July 1.
The deadline for the 2002-2003 competition will be Jan. 25, 2002.
Douglas Dempster appointed senior associate dean in the College of Fine Arts
Executive Vice President and Provost Sheldon Ekland-Olson has approved Dean Robert Freeman’s nomination of Douglas Dempster as senior associate dean of the College of Fine Arts.
Dr. Dempster will hold the Marie Joseph D. Jamail Senior Regents Professorship in Fine Arts as a professor in the College’s department of theatre and dance. His official appointment begins June 1.
Dempster did his undergraduate work at St. Lawrence University, where he was graduated with a double major in philosophy and political science. He earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
He joined the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in 1983 as assistant professor, became associate professor in 1990 and advanced to humanities department chair during the period 1992-96. Founding director of Eastman’s Arts Leadership Program, for which he has been responsible since 1996, Dempster has served at Eastman as dean of academic affairs since 1996, where he has held management responsibility for 12 collegiate departments.
He has also been responsible at Eastman for the leadership of the community education division and for the Eastman summer session. His responsibility for administrative services at Eastman has included admissions, financial aid, graduate studies, accompanying services, the Sibley Music Library, the Ensemble Library and recording arts and services.
Dempster has been responsible for the creation and implementation of many curricular innovations including the Arts Leadership program, the Orchestral Studies program, an interdepartmental Chamber Music program, the Eastman summer seminar in Hamamatsu, Japan, and a more flexible undergraduate performance major called the major in musical arts.
At the UT College of Fine Arts, Dempster will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the dean’s office, supervising the work of the assistant and associate deans.
