Vermont College of Fine Arts & upstreet Magazine Announce The upstreet Scholarship Fund

MONTPELIER, Vt., March 14, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Vermont College of Fine Arts  (VCFA), a national center for graduate education in the fine arts, and Vivian Dorsel '06, founder and publisher of upstreet literary magazine, announce the creation of the upstreet Scholarship Fund, a need-based grant for writers attending the MFA in Writing program. The $5,000 scholarship will be awarded to up to two students annually.

Vivian Dorsel, a graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts, established this scholarship in 2013 to help meritorious and deserving writers attend her alma mater; in particular, those who might not be able to attend without scholarship support.  As a graduate of the MFA in Writing program and a long-term supporter of scholarships for VCFA's Postgraduate Writers Conference, Dorsel has a deep understanding of the need for scholarships to help talented and emerging writers pursue their dreams of a writing career.

upstreet, based in the Western Massachusetts, is an independently owned and published, nationally distributed magazine which was founded by Dorsel in 2005. upstreet's editorial staff —many of them VCFA alumni  — have been chosen by Dorsel for their love of the written word, their high standards of literary judgment, and their desire to offer a voice to prose writers and poets who might not find publication opportunities in more mainstream journals. 

"We are thrilled to offer this new award as a way of affirming our steadfast commitment to emerging writers both here at VCFA and within the larger community.  The scholarship will allow some very talented students to come to our program when they might otherwise not be able to.  Vivian's contribution to VCFA is heartfelt and enormously appreciated by us all," said Louise Crowley, director of the program.

The MFA in Writing was founded more than 30 years ago and is consistently ranked one of the top two low-residency MFA programs in the country by Poets & Writers magazine. Faculty and program alumni have garnered every major literary award in the country.

Scholarship information may be found here.

About upstreet: based in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, upstreet is an award-winning annual literary anthology containing the best new fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction available. It is an independently owned and published, nationally distributed magazine. Vivian Dorsel, formerly Managing Editor of The Berkshire Review, founded it in 2005. 

upstreet number four was awarded the Bronze Medal in the Anthologies category of the 2008 Independent Publisher Book Awards.

About Vermont College of Fine Arts: VCFA is a national center for education in the arts, fostering the excellence of emerging and established artists, while advancing the arts to create a more humane world. Founded in 2008, VCFA is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. (NEASC), through its Commission on Institutions of Higher Education. VCFA offers the Master of Fine Arts degree in Film, Writing, Writing for Children & Young Adults, Visual Art, Music Composition and Graphic Design. www.vcfa.edu.

For more information:
Ann Cardinal
Director of Student & Alumni Recruitment
802-828-8589
866-934-8232, ext. 8589
[email protected]

SOURCE Vermont College of Fine Arts