Writing professor wins fellowship award

The poem “The Wild Swans at Coole” by William Butler Yeats painted such a beautiful scene of birds and nature that creative writing professor Ange Mlinko could not help but fall in love with the language. She was a teenager at the time, but after reading the poetry, she knew what she wanted to do with her life and began to write her own poems. It was this same love and dedication to the arts that won Mlinko the Guggenheim Fellowship.

“I feel very honored; it is a high honor to receive this fellowship, and I plan to travel throughout Texas this summer with my kids and write poetry with the money,” Mlinko said.

Since 1925, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has annually awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship to individuals “who have already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts,” according to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation website.

Approximately 200 fellowships are awarded each year, prompting the submission of 3,500 to 4,000 applications to the foundation.

Literature graduate student Julia Taylor thinks that literature is one of the best venues for self-expression.

“It’s a means to understand the world, and you can apply that knowledge throughout your life,” Taylor said.

Mlinko seeks to encourage the appreciation of creative writing in her students. She tells them to constantly read and to fall in love with poems and literature.

“I tell my students to imitate the style of their favorite authors and to continue to read, because it’s a lifelong journey, and as you read, you continue to learn,” Mlinko said.

Mlinko is working on publishing two more books — one in prose and the other in poetry. She already has 50 pages of poems and material. Readers can expect an abundance of imagery in her poetry book.

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