Professor Awarded National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

Assistant Professor Serena Chopra, PhD, is the recipient of a $25,000 Creative Writing Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in recognition of her previous work and in support of new projects. Chopra, who teaches Creative Writing in the English Department, was one of only 35 awardees of the fellowship in poetry this year, chosen from more than 2,000 applications.

Chopra applied for the grant amid a personal crisis and didn’t remember that she did so until she received a phone call from the award committee 10 months later.

“I was completely disoriented by the announcement,” she recalls. “I asked, ‘Did I apply for this?’ to which the voice on the other end laughed, ‘Well, you must have.’

“I must have intuited at the time how much even the gesture of applying would keep me going, would keep me reaching for to a future writing self in need of support.”

An accomplished poet, essayist and filmmaker, Chopra published a collection of poetry, Ic, in 2017, and is due to release a new book, Dayawati, Of Mercy, with Graywolf Press in 2026. (She used a sample from the forthcoming book as her application submission.)

Although name recognition might have garnered some a second glance at their submission in any other contest, the NEA Creative Writing Fellowships are judged anonymously. The sole criterion is artistic excellence, which makes Chopra’s award that much more impressive. 

Sonora Jha, PhD, Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship and Academic Community at the College of Arts and Sciences, says that this award is reflective of Chopra’s impressive body of creative work.

"Dr. Chopra richly deserves this prestigious NEA fellowship, with her third book of poetry forthcoming and her many accomplishments as a multidisciplinary artist, scholar and teacher,” says Jha. “The College of Arts and Sciences heartily congratulates her and is proud to have her artistic excellence at our institution.”

The cash award isn’t tied to any one particular project, instead giving writers support, time and space to create new work. Previous fellowships have resulted in books such as Nikki Giovanni’s Black Judgement, Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, Oscar Hijuelos’ The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, according to the NEA’s website.

Up next for Chopra is a book-in-progress that explores the relationship between language, the laboring body and grief. Her research for the book inspired her “Writing Grief” course (ENGL 3910), which she teaches each Spring Quarter.

“The NEA fellowship will grant me the time and resources to deepen my research both for my Writing Grief course and for my developing book project on the topic,” says Chopra. “I am excited to be teaching the third quarter of Writing Grief and am continually grateful for and inspired by the diverse ways students navigate this complex and poignant topic with profound nuance, compassion and brilliance.”