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William Paterson University English professor and critically acclaimed author Marina Budhos has been awarded a 2022 fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. This marks the professor’s third fellowship through the Council, which previously recognized her in 2007 and 2013.
Since joining William Paterson University in 2004, Budhos—who teaches undergraduate and graduate course in creative writing, autobiographical writing, and introductory literature, among others—has published five books. Her sixth, the young adult novel We Are All We Have, will be published in October.
For her fellowship application, Budhos submitted a portion of a novel-in-progress, Liberty Park, which tells the current-day story of an Indo-Guyanese widower and his adult son as the two struggle to connect and reconnect in the shadows of immigration, fame, death, and divorce. New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowships are granted solely on independent peer panel assessment of work samples’ artistic quality.
Having her work recognized with an award, Budhos says, is very meaningful. “It is affirming of the project I am working on and affirming of my choices as a writer,” she continues, noting that this same novel-in-progress had also previously earned recognition with an National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction. “It gives me the sense that I am on the right track, somehow.”
Budhos, whose books have earned such awards as the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the EMMA Award (Exceptional Merit Media Award), and the Rona Jaffe Award for Women Writers, was also a recipient of William Paterson University’s 2019 Faculty Excellence Award.
