The first notice came from the Ph.D. program in English at the University of Wisconsin. Then came an offer from the University of Houston. Then Florida State. After that, she got a call from one of the most prestigious creative writing fellowships in the country, the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford.
Joy Priest turned them all down and accepted a highly coveted seven-month fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, instead.
For Priest, who finishes her MFA in poetry at the University of South Carolina this May, the spring semester has been one incredible offer after another, an ongoing affirmation of the Louisville, Kentucky, native’s decision to move to Columbia in 2016.