Becky Hagenston (photo by Megan Bean)
STARKVILLE, Mississippi—Mississippi Department of English Professor Becky Hagenston is a recipient of a Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Artist Fellowship in Fiction.
Established in 1968 by the Mississippi legislature as the state state sponsorship and service agency for the arts, MAC provides artists, arts organizations and educational institutions with financial and technical assistance.
“Our arts community is incredible, and we are thrilled to be providing even more grants to artists across the state, nearly doubling last year,” said Sarah Story, executive director of MAC. “Mississippi’s artistic legacy was built through the talents of its exceptionally creative citizens. These funds will help support the next generation of great artists and ensure our state’s history of artistic excellence lives on.”
Hagenston’s $4,250 stipend is part of the $1.65 million in grants MAC awarded for fiscal year 2023, made possible by continued funding from the state legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts became. Visit www.arts.ms.gov for more information.
“I am so grateful to MAC for this grant and for their support of the Mississippi arts. I will use the funds to develop my fifth story collection and look forward to seeing where that takes me,” Hagenston said.
Hagenston has been a faculty member at MSU since 2001 and is the author of four award-winning story collections: The Age of Discovery and Other Stories, winner of The Journal of Ohio State University Press book award and 2022 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in fiction; “Scavenger”, winner of the Permafrost Book Prize; “Strange Weather”, winner of the Spokane Prize in Short Fiction; and A Gram of Mars, winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize by Sarabande Books.
Hagenston has received two O. Henry Awards for short stories, a 2020 Pushcart Award for her story “Hi Ho Cherry-O,” the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award, the Reynolds Price Short Fiction Award, and the Converse College Julia Peterkin Award.
Her work is published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Oxford American, New England Review, Southern Review and Gettysburg Review.
A native of Maryland, Hagenston earned a bachelor’s degree from Elizabethtown College, a master of fine arts degree from the University of Arizona, and a master’s degree from New Mexico State University.
The Department of English is part of MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences. See www.english.msstate.edu for complete details.
MSU is Mississippi’s premier university, available online at www.msstate.edu.
