Inara Verzemnieks has won the eleventh annual Goldfarb Family Fellowship. An award-winning journalist before leaving to start her writing career, Inara is currently an Arts Fellow in The Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in the (Portland) Oregonian, The Washington Post and The Atlantic, as well as the online literary magazine Defunct. In 2007, Verzemnieks was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing. Her fully funded two-week residency at VCCA begins in late December.
The Goldfarb Family Fellowship is one of the most highly competitive awards offered by VCCA. This years competition was judged by VCCA Fellow Helen Benedict, a professor of journalism at Columbia University and the author of eleven books: six novels and five nonfiction.
The Goldfarb Fellowship is endowed by VCCA Fellow and former VCCA Board member, Ronald Goldfarb, a respected author, agent and attorney. He has written eleven books and over three hundred articles for publications including The Washington Post and The New York Times. Goldfarb is a founding partner in the law firm and literary agency, Goldfarb & Associates.
Previous winners of the Goldfarb Fellowship include E.J. Levy, who just won the Flannery O’Conner Short Fiction Award. (see below)