The reported that Jessica Anthony ’96, senior lecturer in English, was one of three Mainers to win the Guggenheim Fellowship for 2026. Fellowships were awarded to 223 people working across 55 fields, according to a release from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Nearly 5,000 people had applied.

Jess Anthony is the author of four novels, including The Most, which was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2024.  Her 2020 novel “Enter the Aardvark” was a finalist for the New England Book Award in fiction. Anthony teaches introductory and advanced fiction and nonfiction workshops and advises students writing creative theses.

You can read more about �ֲ���ý’ two faculty winners here.

Myronn Hardy, associate professor of English, was one of three Mainers to win the Guggenheim Fellowship for 2026 recently reported in the. Fellowships were awarded to 223 people working across 55 fields, according to a release from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Nearly 5,000 people had applied.

Hardy’s Guggenheim is a career prize, celebrating his body of work while supporting future endeavors. Hardy has published six volumes of poetry, most recently, Aurora Americana. His books have received numerous accolades including the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Griot-Stadler Prize for Poetry. 

You can read more about �ֲ���ý’ two faculty winners here.

Hardy finished writing “Threshold with Fog” about a year ago. It’s a busy time for him, poetrywise.  “I’m currently writing poem after poem,” he says. As yet, he doesn’t have a new collection in mind. “I don’t know if a new collection is forming. This usually takes years to discover.” HIs inspiration, he says, was, “thinking about being lost in the Leuthold Forest Reserve. And what it may mean to be found and guided by a stranger.” (Leuthold Forest Reserve is in the wilds of Maine, southwest of Jackman.)

Hardy’s most recent poetry collection, Aurora Americana (2023), was called “a clear-eyed vantage of America” by Rebecca Morgan Frank in her review for the Poetry Foundation.

Associate Professor of Education Mara Tieken recently offered a sand a in The Daily Yonder, a national news outlet dedicated to reporting on rural people and places. Tieken, who studies rural education and previously worked as a third grade teacher in rural Tennessee, detailed how school closures and consolidations harm students and their communities. “Every year, hundreds of thousands of children are displaced when their schools are permanently shuttered,” Tieken writes.