Eight writers receive writing fellowships at Danish universities
13.01.2022 l Latest news
VELUX FONDEN’s pilot project Writers-in-residence aims to promote the interplay between the humanities and artistic endeavour, and strengthen Danish literature. Now eight talented writers are receiving fellowships to write in university environments.
Meet the Danish universities’ first fiction writers-in-residence: Majse Aymo-Boot, Adam Drewes, Signe Gjessing, Ida Marie Hede, Luka Holmegaard, Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen, Mikas Lang and Gerd Laugesen. They will soon move to the University of Copenhagen, Roskilde University, the University of Southern Denmark, Aarhus University and Aalborg University.
“This year’s grantees have confirmed to us the high artistic potential of Danish fiction and the great opportunity for new literary breakthroughs. Fiction is an important voice in our society and democracy. With the programme, we want to strengthen literature by creating time and opportunity for collaboration and shared inspiration between writers, researchers and students. Through this meeting, new creative realisations and expressions can emerge for literature, research, and not least, readers. We are looking forward to following the experiment,” says Henrik Tronier, head of programme, from VELUX FONDEN.
The foundation received 12 invited applications from the six humanities departments that we had established links with during the discovery phase. The applications were written as a collaboration between the writer and a researcher at the relevant department.
The applications were assessed by an international panel of writers and researchers and VELUX FONDEN’s working group for humanities research, who nominated the writers to the board.
The Writers-in-residence programme has been created in collaboration with writers and research environments at the country’s humanities departments. What’s common between the writers is that they are not yet established full-time writers, but have a high level of literary talent with several published works of fiction behind them. And that they will be able to both contribute to the departments’ researchers and students, and benefit artistically from the dialogue themselves.
Two-year pilot schemeThe eight writers will each receive a two-year fellowship of DKK 200,000 annually. In addition, the universities’ expenses for the writers’ offices and admin is covered. VELUX FONDEN is thus providing DKK 4.8 million in grants through the initiative, which will run in a pilot scheme lasting two years. The next programme call is expected to be published in spring 2022, with the scholarships being available following invitation from a head of department at one of the humanities departments with an established working relationship.
The writersBelow you can see the writers and read about their thoughts on being writers-in-residence.
