The Wyoming Arts Council is now accepting applications for the 2021 Pattie Layser Greater Yellowstone Creative Writing and Journalism Fellowship. 

This annual prestigious fellowship of $3,500 is a national call open to creative writers (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) and journalists (writer, photojournalist, videographer, documentary filmmaker, online or print media) who demonstrate serious inquiry and dedication to the Greater Yellowstone region through their work.

With generous funding from The Pattie and Earle Layser Memorial Fund, this fellowship seeks to intersect science, education, current events, and conservation to effectively communicate the Greater Yellowstone’s natural history and singular importance to society through creative and exceptional writing and subject communication. 

Applications are accepted online via https://wyomingartscouncil.submittable.com/submit. The application deadline is March 11. Established and recognized authors are being sought, but emerging and mid-career writers are also encouraged to apply.

The fellowship recipient will be expected to create or complete a relevant publishable or produced work and may be requested or encouraged to make public presentations. In addition to the financial award, the fellowship recipient may elect to also receive a one to two-week housing residency at one of several prearranged different locations within the Greater Yellowstone region. Such residency will be based on availability and will be negotiated with the fellowship recipient. 

Susan Marsh will serve as a juror for the second year in a row. Susan is based in Jackson, Wyoming. With degrees in geology and landscape architecture and a lifelong interest in creative writing, she has combined her interests into a body of work that explores the relationship of humans to the wild.

Her work has appeared in journals that include “Orion,” “North American Review,” and “Fourth Genre,” and in many anthologies. Her books include the award-winning novel “War Creek” and non-fiction books, “A Hunger for High Country,” “Cache Creek: A Trailside Guide to Jackson Hole’s Backyard Wilderness,” and “Saving Wyoming’s Hoback,” winner of the Wallace Stegner Prize in Environmental Humanities. She writes a column “Back to Nature” for “Mountain Journal.”

Joining Susan as a juror this year is Christine Peterson. Christine Peterson has covered wildlife, the environment and outdoor recreation in Wyoming and across the West for more than a decade, first at the “Casper Star-Tribune” then as a freelance journalist. She has since written about grizzly bears, wolves, elk and insects for “National Geographic,”water law and persistence hunting for “Outdoor Life” and chronic wasting disease and landlocked public land for “High Country News.” Her byline has also appeared in “The Guardian,” “Bugle” and the “Cool Green Science” web magazine.

She is a regular contributor to the “Casper Star-Tribune” and “Wyofile” and is a contributing writer for “Outdoor Life.” She's the vice president of the Outdoor Writers Association of America and has won numerous regional and national awards. When she's not reporting or writing from her home in Laramie, she's wandering the West with her husband, four-year-old daughter and greying yellow Labrador. 

A complete list of eligibility requirements and additional information can be found on the Wyoming Arts Council website at http://www.wyomingartscouncil.org.  For more information, contact Taylor Craig at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 307-274-6673.

Caption: Pattie Layser hiking the Teton Crest Trail in the late 1990s. Pattie loved the Tetons, calling it “her life’s landscape.”