Residency Awards

Lillian E. Smith Center Residency Awards

Since its inception, the LES Center has served as a space for artists, writers, scientists, students, and more to continue the legacy of Lillian Smith through their work. To facilitate them, the LES Center offers four residency awards every year:

• Writer-in-Service Award • McClure-Scalin Visual Artist Award • Gabriele Stauf Award • Emily Pierce Graduate Award All awards provide individuals with a twoweek stay at the center so that they can dedicate time and energy to their projects. A small honorarium is also provided with two of the awards—the Writer-in-Service Award and the Emily Pierce Graduate Award. The Writer-inService Award also provides a travel allowance.

Our current fundraising priority is to shore up each of these funds so that we can provide an honorarium and travel allowance with each award.

Additionally, we would like to identify donors interested in endowing each of the four awards so they can be offered in perpetuity. If you are interested in contributing to one or more of the residency award funds or, if you would like to discuss funding a permanent endowment, please contact Dr. Matthew Teutsch at the LES Center.

Lillian E. Smith

Writer-In-Service Award

Justin Rudder is the 2021 recipient of the Lillian

E. Smith Writer-in-Service Award. He is a Digital Asset Archivist at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, as well as the founder and director of the Digital Grassroots heritage project. Rudder’s project, Black Towns in Alabama, works to counter the ways that “many white Southern communities refuse public acknowledgment of their local Black history.” On the project, Rudder says, “Scholars have brought visibility to the stories of slavery and civil rights movements on the national, state, and regional levels over the last few decades. However, the joys and sorrows of daily African American life as well as how Black citizens identify the world around them are regularly overlooked. Some towns have taken steps to publicize the history of Black neighborhoods through social media as well as local library and museum websites. However, many towns respond that there are no Black communities or authorities on Black history in the area, and reason that their towns were integrated so any individual Black communities would be difficult to map.”

This award is sponsored annually by a generous gift by Sue Ellen Lovejoy, a member of the LES Center Advisory Board. This award provides an opportunity for those writers who, like Lillian E. Smith, recognize “the power of the arts to transform the lives of all human beings.” Recipients receive an honorarium, travel allowance, and a two-week residency at the Center.

Gabriele Stauf

Residency Award

Dr. Erin Miller is the 2021 recipient of the Gabriele Stauf Residency Award. Miller is an Associate Professor in The Reading and Elementary Education Department in the Cato College of Education at The University of North Carolina Charlotte. Miller’s research

McClure-Scanlin Visual Artist

Residency Award

examines racial identity construction in childhood with a particular focus on white children; the early racialized memories/experiences of white teacher candidates and the possible impact those might have on their practice; and the development of anti-racist pedagogies for elementary aged children through culturally relevant/sustaining early literacy practices.

On receiving the award, Miller said, “I am grateful for the support of the folks from the Lillian E. Smith Center of Piedmont University. This fellowship will provide much needed time to do writing about pedagogy over the summer in the beautiful, serene North Georgia foothills”

The Gabriele Stauf Residency Award provides a complimentary two-week retreat at the Center for an educator who is working on a project that would benefit from a residency. Gabriele Stauf, Professor Emerita of English at Georgia Southwestern State University, sponsors this annual award because she understands the value of time and solitude required for creative pursuits.

Tom Hansell is the recipient of the 2021 McClure-Scanlin Visual Artist Residency Award. Hansell is a filmmaker, educator, and author who explores relationships between energy, community, and nature. Hansell plans to use his residency at the Lillian Smith Center to focus on the Ancient New project, a series of short films, art installations, and public events that will reveal invisible ties between mountain headwaters communities and urban communities downstream. Working across geographic, racial, and political boundaries, these events will bring people together to celebrate the river and to ensure equal access to fresh water.

On receiving the award, Hansell said, “I am truly honored to be awarded the McClureScanlin residency at the Lillian E. Smith Center. During my time there, I plan to create work

that honors Lillian Smith’s commitment to the environment, education, and justice.”

You can see some of his work on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/tomhansell

The McClure-Scanlin Award is made possible through a generous gift to Piedmont University from Tommye Scanlin and her husband, Thomas. Tommye is a member of the LES Center Advisory Board and a long-time LES Center Fellow. The award recipient is selected in consultation with faculty members of the Piedmont Department of Art and receives a complimentary two-week residency at the Center.

Emily Pierce Graduate Student

Residency Award

Amy Bonnaffons is the recipient of the 2021 Emily Pierce Graduate Student Residency Award. She is the author of the story collection The Wrong Haven and the novel The Regrets. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere, and has been read on NPR’s This American Life. She holds a BA in Literature from Yale, an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU, and will soon complete a PhD in English and Women’s Studies at the University of Georgia. Amy is also a founding editor of 7x7.la, a literary journal devoted to collaborations between writers and visual artists.

She is currently working on a graphic memoir about her family history and its intersections with American history, inspired by reading her greatgrandmother’s unpublished memoir which details her upbringing “as a settler on the the Homestead Act land in Oklahoma.” According to Bonnaffons, “The Perimeter of Eden is . . . about more than just myself and my family: it’s about my process of working through the question of how to live ethically, with concern for the future, as a white American woman amid late-stage capitalism.”

Named after one of the first Lillian E. Smith Scholars, the Emily Pierce Graduate Residency Award provides the opportunity for graduate students whose work moves us towards a more equitable society. It includes a complimentary twoweek retreat at the Center and an honorarium.