WRITING FELLOWSHIP

Deborah Poe, a graduate student at Binghamton University, State University of New York (SUNY), has won this year’s Thayer Fellowship in the Arts award.

Poe, the daughter of Becky and Jerry Poe of Winnsboro, was awarded the $7,000 fellowship, which is designed to serve as a bridge between study at SUNY and a professional career in the creative or performing arts. Each year, a Thayer Fellowship is awarded to one student, or shared among several students, who demonstrate outstanding achievement and high professional potential in the arts.

Poe, who writes poetry and fiction, will receive her doctorate in creative writing in May. “My work is a weaving of the abstract and the concrete,” she said. “It’s a fusion of lyric and language.”

Her first book, a poetry collection titled Our Parenthetical Ontology, is due out this fall. The Thayer grant may allow her to do a book tour, though she has a couple of other projects in mind for the money as well.

Poe has also completed a second collection of poems, titled Elements, and is wrapping up work on her dissertation, a book of short fiction to be titled Event Landmarks. She has also conducted research in France and China in preparation for a novel.

Jaimee Wriston Colbert, associate professor of creative writing at Binghamton University, said it’s unusual for a student to move as gracefully – and successfully – between writing genres as Poe has.

“I believe Deborah is a very good teacher, and she has the potential for becoming a highly accomplished teacher, along with her very considerable gifts as a poet, and a fiction writer,” Colbert said.

Poe, who was born in Texas, completed her undergraduate work at Texas A&M and worked for Microsoft for several years before deciding to pursue a career as a writer and teacher. Before attending Binghamton, Poe earned a master’s degree at Western Washington University.

“I’m really interested in bridging cultural differences,” said Poe, who felt a calling in the classroom after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Teaching is a space with potential for communication, for language to bring us closer together.”

The Thayer Fellowship was established in 1985-86 by the late Walter N. Thayer, Chairman of Whitney Communications, New York City, in honor of his wife, Jeanne C. Thayer, who was a SUNY trustee from 1974 to 1984 and an active supporter of the arts. The Thayers wanted to assist SUNY's most talented young artists at the most difficult period of time for a young professional, when the struggle to make a living can overwhelm even the most dedicated individual. The fellowship helps the artist take advantage of important opportunities.

Binghamton University is one of the four university centers of the State University of New York. Known for the excellence of its students, faculty, staff and programs, Binghamton enrolls over 14,500 students in programs leading to bachelors, master's and doctoral degrees. Its curriculum, founded in the liberal arts, has expanded to include selected professional and graduate programs.