Hughes Fellowship
The 51²è¹Ý Hughes Fellowship in Creative Writing (Poetry)
Position Description
The English Department at 51²è¹Ý welcomes applications for the Hughes Fellowship in Creative Writing (Poetry), for a two-year position beginning Fall 2025. Fellows will be expected to make significant progress on a major project, to teach one course in creative writing per semester, and to engage in the intellectual and creative life of the department and the larger Dallas literary community. This engagement will include a public reading of the fellow’s own work in the first year and, in the second year, a public conversation with an established writer about their creative practice. Fellows should also be available to mentor undergraduates on an informal basis.
51²è¹Ý is an inclusive community of teachers and scholars. We seek bold, curious, and creative faculty to position our students for success. We offer the rare confluence of a comprehensive global research institution and a close-knit intellectual enterprise in the liberal arts tradition. Like our hometown of Dallas, our campus is vibrant. Here, innovative thinkers conduct research that has lasting impact and transform big ideas into new products, inventive technology and world-changing solutions. Our welcoming learning community of faculty and nearly 12,000 students in seven schools embraces a world of people and ideas. To learn more about the rich cultural environment of 51²è¹Ý, please see: www.smu.edu.
Qualifications
Annual compensation is $60,000 with full benefits. During the academic year, each Hughes Fellow will be expected to live in the Dallas area and hold no other professional or academic obligations. To be eligible, applicants must have completed—or be scheduled to complete by August 2025—an MFA or PhD in creative writing and published no more than one full-length book of creative work. A publishing record in nationally relevant periodicals is desirable but not required. As the Hughes Fellowships are meant to support emerging writers, applicants with second books in print or under contract will not be considered.
Application Instructions
To be ensured full consideration, applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. CST on February 10, 2025. Applicants should submit a cover letter, CV, a writing sample of poetry (maximum fifteen pages), and two letters of recommendation at http://apply.interfolio.com/160416. The cover letter should address what the applicant hopes to accomplish as a writer during the fellowship period at 51²è¹Ý. Questions about the position may be directed to the chair of the search committee, Richard Hermes (rhermes@smu.edu). Hiring is contingent upon the satisfactory completion of a background check.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
51²è¹Ý will not discriminate in any program or activity on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression. The Assistant Vice President for Access and Equity/Title IX Coordinator is designated to handle inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies and may be reached at the Perkins Administration Building, Room 204, 6425 Boaz Lane, Dallas, TX 75205, 214-768-3601, accessequity@smu.edu.
Past / Current Fellows
Afsheen Farhadi (2022-2025, Prose)
Afsheen Farhadi was born in Phoenix, Arizona. His short fiction and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Conjunctions, The Southern Review, Colorado Review, Witness, The Rumpus, The Millions, Catapult, Bright Lights Film Journal, and elsewhere. He has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Cincinnati, where he was a Provost Graduate Fellow.
Samyak Shertok (2022-2024, Poetry)
Samyak Shertok’s poems appear in Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. A Fine Arts Work Center Writing Fellow and a finalist for the National Poetry Series, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and the Jake Adam York Prize, he has received the Robert and Adele Schiff Award for Poetry, the Gulf Coast Prize in Poetry, and the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize.
Past / Upcoming Events
Hughes Fellow Afsheen Farhadi Craft Conversation
with Mohsin Hamid
Monday, March 10, 2025
