English Associate Professor Nicky Beer has been awarded a fellowship for residency at the highly prestigious MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH. MacDowell has been referred to by the New York Times as the "gold standard" of colonies for artists—only about 30 people from across many artistic disciplines are housed at the colony at a given time. The MacDowell Colony describes its mission as one of "[nurturing] the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination." Other writers who have benefitted from MacDowell residencies include James Baldwin, Willa Cather, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Studs Terkel, and Thornton Wilder. Beer will be spending two weeks at the colony working on her next book of poems during her sabbatical in the Fall 2017 semester.