Annie Cigic Awarded Scholarship to Chautauqua Institution Summer 2019 Writers-in-Residence Program

For many graduate students, summer is the time to take a break from coursework and catch up on some much needed relaxation. But for Annie Cigic, a spring graduate of the BGSU MFA program in poetry and soon-to-be first-year doctoral student in the Rhetoric and Writing program, summer between two graduate programs meant an opportunity to pursue a whole new kind of education - a writer’s residency.

As the proud recipient of an invitation and scholarship to participate in the prestigious, Chautauqua Institution Summer Writers-in-Residence Program, Annie shared some of her expectations and plans for making the most of this exciting opportunity, including working with poets Brandon Som and Maggie Smith.

Annie:

This summer I am attending Chautauqua Institution for two weeks as a writer-in-residence. I won a scholarship to attend up to three weeks of poetry workshops and stay at the Institution. The workshops are Monday through Friday for two hours in the morning. One of the workshops I am in is a generative workshop, which is focused on craft-analysis and poetry prompts and invigorating my writing process. During the first week of workshop with Brandon Som, I will be focusing on the poetic line and how I engage with the world around me. I will also be focusing on sound, memory, listening as mapping, and listening to the body.

During the second week of my residency, I'll work with Maggie Smith in a traditional workshop setting where I will bring in new poems for the workshop to critique. It is also my goal to continue to revise my poetry chapbook with the advice and prompts I receive from these workshops and the poets who are leading them. I hope to make significant headway with my manuscript so I can start submitting it for publication.

Annie has recently published poetry with The Hunger and Gordon Square Review, with work forthcoming later this month in Driftwood Press and The Bookends Review. We are so proud of Annie for all of her accomplishments and are so thrilled to welcome her to the doctoral program this fall!