The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is pleased to announce the winner of the 2021 “My Time” fellowship, for writers who are also parents of dependent children under the age of 18. Writers of any literary genre were invited to apply. DW McKinney was selected from 64 applications received from writers across the U.S. Her writing proposal and sample was selected by the judges as rating the highest for literary merit and likelihood of publication. McKinney will receive a fully funded one-week residency at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow as well as a stipend to cover travel and childcare.
DW McKinney is a work from home mother of two, ages 2 and 5. She pens a column, 3 PANELS, at CNMN Magazine and serves as the Senior Nonfiction Columns Editor for Raising Mothers. She is also an Associate Series Editor for wigleaf (Top 50). She was a finalist in the 2020 Remember in November Contest in Creative Nonfiction by Hippocampus Magazine. Nominated for Best American Essays and the Pushcart Prize, her other honors include the Shenandoah Fellowship for BIPOC Editors, a fiction residency with the New Southern Fugitives, and a scholarship from The Hellebore Press, in addition to other awards and nominations. She is also a former editor with The Tishman Review and Linden Avenue Literary Journal.
McKinney’s writing has been featured in Narratively, JMWW Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, [PANK], HelloGiggles, and Elite Daily, among others. Born in California, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Dominican University of California and a Master of Arts in Anthropology from Texas State University. She now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. Learn more about McKinney at dwmckinney.com.
McKinney will be a writer-in-residence at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in August when she will be working on an essay collection composed of her travelogues as creative mediums and educational directives. During her residency, she will outline her essays and curate her anthropological observations and interviews from her time living abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2008 and 2010 and travels in Brazil, Greece, Ecuador, and travels across the United States. Her essays will incorporate discussion on racial discourse, history, and mental health, as well as Americana and culture.
Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow Executive Director, Michelle Hannon, said, “It’s an honor to be able to provide an environment that nurtures writers’ creativity and productivity, but it’s especially meaningful for parent writers who have so many responsibilities at home.” McKinney said, “I can be neither an effective creator nor mother without first caring for myself and providing space for my mind and body to properly unwind.”
The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow would like to thank Tony and Caroline Grant and the Sustainable Arts Foundation for generously funding this fellowship. For more information about sponsoring a fellowship supporting a genre and/or area of interest you are passionate about, visit www.writerscolony.org/sponsor-a-fellowship.