Washington College Lit House Director Mark Nowak Named Guggenheim Fellow

CHESTERTOWN—Documentary poet Mark Nowak, Director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House at Washington College, has been appointed a 2010 Guggenheim Fellow, an honor the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awards on the basis of “achievement and exceptional promise.” Nowak was one of 180 Fellows selected from some 3,000 applicants throughout the United States and Canada. His Guggenheim funding will support research for his third book, which will address the lives of workers in low-wage food and retail jobs.

Nowak’s first book, Shut Up Shut Down (Coffee House Press, 2004), explored the collapse of the American manufacturing economy. His second, Coal Mountain Elementary (Coffee House Press, 2009), is a moving chronicle of the dangers of the global mining industry and the aftermath of its disasters. He continues to follow the mining industry, posting updates on coal mining accidents and safety issues on his “Coal Mountain” blog: http://coalmountain.wordpress.com.

Nowak was named director of the Rose O’Neill Literary House in 2009. The Lit House, as it is known on campus, is a haven for the writing arts. It regularly hosts prominent authors, poets, scholars and editors for public talks and workshops. For more information, visit http://lithouse.washcoll.edu.