Chronicle columnist Vanessa Hua is among 36 writers awarded a $25,000 fellowship for an upcoming creative writing project, the National Endowment for the Arts announced Thursday, Jan. 16.
Hua, an East Bay resident and author of the San Francisco-set novel “A River of Stars,” will receive the NEA’s Creative Writing Fellowship, which enables recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel and general career advancement. She was chosen from nearly 1,700 applicants from across the country, according to the organization’s news release.
“I’m ecstatic,” she said. “I’ve applied at least three times with different projects. … It’s always been a dream of mine.”
Hua applied for the prestigious fellowship in March with a novel set in China’s Cultural Revolution. The new project, with the working title “Forbidden City,” is told through the eyes of a teenage girl who is also Chairman Mao Zedong’s lover.
Hua recalled watching a documentary more than a decade ago that explored the People’s Republic of China founder’s love for ballroom dancing and teenage lovers. Upon further research, Hua learned that the girls considered it an honor to be romantically involved with the revolutionary leader.
That era of the chairman’s history served as the inspiration for Hua’s new project.
“Fiction can really flourish where the historical record ends,” Hua said, revealing that her new book is told in two timelines: China in 1965-66, and San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1976.
Hua hopes to use the funds to continue to do research for the book with a trip to China, as well as to finance more revising and writing work.
Along with Hua, other creative writing fellows from California include Jonathan Escoffery of Long Beach and Maggie Shipstead from Los Angeles.
Gwendolyn Harper of Emeryville is one of the recipients of the NEA’s $12,500 Literature Translation Fellowships. These grants are alternately bestowed each year for poetry and prose. The 2020 fellowships were awarded to prose writers.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support our nation’s writers and translators and their efforts to expand our literary landscape through their artistry, creativity, and dedication,” said NEA Chairwoman Mary Anne Carter in a statement.
The independent federal agency works to fund, promote and strengthen individual artists and organizations — like Berkeley Repertory Theatre, which was awarded a $50,000 grant to support the Ground Floor, its center for the creation and development of new work — across the United States with diverse opportunities involved in the arts, literature, theater and other areas of creative expression.
For more information about NEA grants and fellowships, go to www.arts.gov.