Eight Yaddo Artists Among 2008 Guggenheim Winners

Saratoga Springs, NY (April 7, 2008) - Eight Yaddo artists and one Member of The Corporation of Yaddo are among the 190 artists, scholars, and scientists from the United States and Canada receiving 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship Awards.

Winners of the awards are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. More than 2,600 applicants were considered by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for the 2008 fellowships. The average individual prize this year is approximately $43,000, with all grants totaling $8,200,000. Applications in 75 different fields – from the natural sciences to the creative arts – were considered for the 2008 awards.

Yaddo artists receiving 2008 Guggenheim Fellowships are:

Meena Alexander, a poet from New York, New York.

Lan Samantha Chang, a fiction writer, from Iowa City, Iowa

Rodney Evans, a filmmaker from Brooklyn, New York.

Joe Fyfe, a visual artist from Brooklyn, New York

Forrest Gander, a poet, from Barrington, Rhode Island.

Pamela Lins, a visual artist from Brooklyn, New York.

Richard Panek, a science writer from New York, New York.

Laura Elise Schwendinger, a composer from Madison, Wisconsin

In addition, a Member of The Corporation of Yaddo, writer Margo Jefferson of New York City, is the winner of a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship for general nonfiction.