{"id":219666,"date":"2010-01-05T17:10:57","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T22:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=34309"},"modified":"2010-01-05T17:10:57","modified_gmt":"2010-01-05T22:10:57","slug":"thompson-wins-writing-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/219666","title":{"rendered":"Thompson wins writing grant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hcl.harvard.edu\/harvardreview\/\">Harvard Review<\/a> Editor Christina Thompson has been awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nea.gov\/\">National Endowment for the Arts<\/a> (NEA). Thompson was one of 42 nonfiction and prose writers chosen from an applicant pool of about 1,000. The award carries a $25,000 stipend.<\/p>\n<p>Thompson\u2019s work-in-progress explores the history of Polynesian people and how they came to inhabit the Pacific region. Thompson, who grew up in Boston, became enamored with the area while studying in Australia on a graduate school fellowship. She enrolled as a doctoral student at the University of Melbourne and, on a trip to New Zealand, met Seven, a Maori man who would become her husband. Their relationship is prominently featured in her book, \u201cCome On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All,\u201d a historical memoir that inspects interactions between Westerners and Maoris.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis new project takes off from a chapter in that book called \u2018Hawaiki,\u2019 and goes back in time to recount the ancient Polynesian colonization of remote Oceania,\u201d said Thompson.<\/p>\n<p>Thompson received a grant from the Literature Board of Australia in November \u2014 more funding that, along with the award from the NEA, will enable her to travel alongside her husband and sons to conduct research in far-flung places like Vanuatu, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, and French Polynesia. \u201cWe&#8217;re hoping to visit a couple of archaeological sites and get to some of the more out-of-the-way islands, including an atoll or two.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe NEA fellowship is a very lucky break for me because I\u2019ve been wanting to write this book for a few years,\u201d said Thompson. \u201cI can do a large part of the background research right here in Widener [Library], but when it comes to getting the feeling of the places \u2014 the color of the sky, the feel of the air, the temperature of the water \u2014 there is really no substitute for getting your feet in the sand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thompson\u2019s work has appeared widely in publications such as Vogue, American Scholar, the Journal of Pacific History, and Australian Literary Studies, and in the 1999, 2000, and 2006 editions of Best Australian Essays. She has been the editor of Harvard Review since 2000, and teaches creative writing courses at Harvard Extension School, where she won the James E. Conway Excellence in Teaching Writing Award in 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Harvard Review Editor Christina Thompson has been awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Thompson was one of 42 nonfiction and prose writers chosen from an applicant pool of about 1,000. The award carries a $25,000 stipend. Thompson\u2019s work-in-progress explores the history of Polynesian people and how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}