AUSTIN, Texas—Dominic Smith, a fiction writer from Austin, and William J. Cobb, a novelist, essayist and short fiction writer from Pennsylvania, have been awarded Dobie Paisano writing fellowships for 2003-04, sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters.
The fellowships allow writers to spend six months at Paisano, the late author J. Frank Dobie’s 254-acre retreat west of Austin, now owned and maintained by The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Audrey N. Slate is director of the Dobie Paisano Fellowship project.
Smith, who will hold the Ralph Johnston Memorial Fellowship, will begin residence at Paisano in September. Cobb, who teaches writing at the Pennsylvania State University, will hold the Jesse Jones Writing Fellowship and begin residency at Paisano in March 2004.
Smith, who grew up in Australia, recently was graduated from the Michener Center for Writers with a master of fine arts degree in fiction and screenwriting. His stories and essays have been published in Australia and the United States, most recently with Imago, the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies and Mid-American Review. He received the 2002 Sherwood Anderson Fiction Prize and placed third in the 2003 Raymond Carver Short Story Award, judged by Robert Olen Butler. He has just completed his first novel, “The Beautiful Miscellaneous,” and plans to spend his residency at Paisano working on a new novel.
Cobb’s work has been published in The New Yorker, The Mississippi Review, American Short Fiction, The Antioch Review and many other publications. His first novel, “The Fire Eaters,” was published by W.W. Norton in 1994, and his book of short stories, “The White Tattoo,” won the Sandstone Prize and was published in 2002 by the Ohio State University Press. Cobb has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, an Associated Writing Programs award for the novel and a Donald Barthelme Memorial Award in Nonfiction. Born in Texas City, he attended Southwest Texas State University, The University of Texas at Austin and received his doctor’s degree from the University of Houston’s writing program.
The deadline for the 2004-05 competition will be January 30, 2004. Information about the next fellowships may be found on the Dobie Paisano Fellowships Web site after June 1.
For more information contact: Dr. Audrey N. Slate, Dobie Paisano Fellowship project, 512-471-8542, or Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.
