Local writers land Artist Trust fellowships

Two Spokane-area writers have been awarded 2014 Fellowships from Artist Trust.

Christopher Howell, of Spokane, who is a professor of English and creative writing at Eastern Washington University, and Polly Buckingham, of Medical Lake, founding editor of StringTown Press and creative writing teacher at EWU, each won $7,500. The fellowships honor professional artists of “exceptional talent and demonstrated ability,” according to the Artist Trust website.

Howell’s latest collection of poems, “Gaze,” was released in 2012. He is the winner of three Pushcart Prizes, two Washington State Book Awards, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Buckingham’s chapbook, “A Year of Silence,” was published this year by the Florida Review Press. It has won the Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award for Fiction. She has been a three-time finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award, and has had stories and poems published in the Threepenny Review, the Moth, and elsewhere.

She’ll be reading from and signing “A Year of Silence” at 7 p.m. Friday at Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave.

Artist Trust is a nonprofit whose mission is to support artists working in Washington state.