Marie-Helene Bertino, who graduated as a Villanova English major in 1999, was just granted a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. According to Yale News, fellows are "selected from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants to be part of the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows." They are selected based upon "prior career achievement and exceptional promise," and they are awarded a monetary stipend to pursue their work.
Marie-Helene also happens to be part of the 100th cohort of Guggenheim fellows, as the program was established one hundred years ago. Per the Fellowship's website, "For a century, Guggenheim Fellowships have helped artists, writers, scholars, and scientists at the highest levels of achievement pursue the work they were meant to do. Since our founding, we have supported over 19,000 Fellows."
Marie-Helene, currently the Ritvo-Slifka Writer in Residence and a lecturer in English at Yale, is the author of numerous books, including the short story collections Safe as Houses (2012) and Exit Zero (just released last month!), as well as the novels 2AM at the Cat's Pajamas (2014), Parakeet (2020), and Beautyland (2024). One of the stories from her debut collection Safe as Houses, "Great, Wondrous," was inspired by her time as a student at Villanova.
You can read more about Marie-Helene and her work at her website.
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| Photo retrieved from us.macmillan.com |