Fulbright Scholarship and Creative Writing: A Comprehensive Guide

The Fulbright Program, a prestigious cultural exchange fellowship sponsored by the U.S. State Department and administered by the Institute for International Education, offers opportunities for individuals to engage in international experiences. Since its establishment in 1946, inspired by Senator William Fulbright's vision of fostering global cooperation, the program has enabled over 255,000 participants to immerse themselves in diverse political, economic, and cultural landscapes, exchange ideas, and collaborate on initiatives that contribute to the betterment of the world.

Fulbright Program Overview

The Fulbright program offers different types of grants, including:

Research/Study Grants: These grants support academic research, creative projects, or study at a foreign university, depending on the country.
English Teaching Assistantships (ETA): ETA award winners teach or assist in teaching English to non-native speakers, ranging from kindergarteners to university students.

The grants are available in over 160 countries.

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants must meet the following requirements:

Be a U.S. citizen or in the process of becoming one at the time of application.
Hold a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent by the beginning date of the grant.
Have sufficient proficiency in the written and spoken language of the host country to carry out the proposed project/study.
Preferably have received most of your undergraduate education in the United States.

Selection Criteria

The Fulbright Awards Program seeks candidates who demonstrate:

Intellectual ability.
Ambassadorial skills and cultural sensitivity.
Knowledge of or desire to learn about the host country and to share what is best about American culture.
Language skills and preparation.
Personal suitability and adaptability to host country.
Promise of advancing mutual understanding among nations.

Particular attention is given to the quality and feasibility of the proposed plan of study or research.

Award Benefits

Full Grant benefits for Study/Research and English Teaching Assistantships include:

Round-trip transportation to the host country
Maintenance for the academic year, based on living costs in the host country
Limited Health Benefits

In addition, Full Grants may include:

Book and research allowances
Mid-term enrichment activities in many countries or world regions
Full or partial tuition
Language study programs
Pre-departure and in-country orientations

Application Procedure

Interested students and alumni should reach out to Undergraduate Research and Fellowships to be enrolled in the application process materials.

To apply to the Fulbright, you will need to submit the entire application by the internal deadline. After you submit your initial application, it will be reviewed by a committee. A representative of the committee will interview you and offer advice about how your application might be improved.

Read also: Fulbright Application Guide

Complete the applications forms through the official Fulbright online application but do not submit them there. Instead, please print the file to PDF and submit a single PDF file of your application through the Internal Fellowship Portal for the internal deadline. You will have the opportunity to revise your application based on feedback provided by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships between our internal deadline and the national one.

A complete Fulbright application will consist of:

A complete application form.
Any supplementary materials for candidates in the arts or creative writing.
Three recommendations.
A mandatory interview with members of the Fulbright committee to help make your application as strong as possible before the national deadline.

Creative Writing and the Fulbright Experience

While the Fulbright program is known for work in fields like public health, anthropology, economics, and the hard sciences, literary writers can also receive a fellowship. Creative Writing fellowships are rare.

The Creative Writing Project

To apply for this grant in Creative Writing, you propose a project for where you want to go. You need to have an affiliation; that is, some local organization or school or library that says they are willing to cooperate with you to help you do your work.

For the application, you need a letter from your affiliation, a creative sample (10 pages, in a requirement unique to the Creative Writing program), a personal statement, a project statement, and letters of recommendation.

Read also: Sources of Fulbright Funds

Adapting to the Host Country

The Fulbright program is flexible. It is about understanding and forming relationships with other nations and cultures through writing in many ways.

It is important to understand how you work. If you need deadlines or affirmation, the Fulbright probably is going to be a waste of your time. It's easy to overly romanticize having all this freedom/time/security in which to work, but it's also incredibly lonely, alienating work, which can make it difficult to actually do the work. There are going to be very few people who you can talk with about what you’re doing, which has the effect of creating certain doubts, certain strange anxieties in a lot of artists. This is something one should deal with and get over before arriving in the country. You don’t want to waste three months or more trying to figure these things out. The Fulbright is most worthwhile for writers who are ready to unsteady themselves creatively, emotionally, and intellectually.

Arts Portfolio Description

A brief description of the supplementary materials uploaded to the portfolio page of the online application. Concisely details how piece(s) were selected, relevance to the proposed project, time spent completing, location and date of completion, developmental trajectory vs. single series, and any information that will tell reviewers what they are looking at/listening to and why.

Statement of Grant Purpose

The Statement of Grant Purpose outlines the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of what you are proposing for your Fulbright grant. Developing a strong, feasible and compelling project is the most important aspect of a successful Fulbright application. The first step is to thoroughly review the award description for your selected host country to understand the specific type of proposal accepted for that award: Independent Study/Research of Graduate Degree Enrollment.

Affiliation

For Study/Research Applicants, affiliation with an educational institution or other sponsoring entity in the host country is required, even if the grant project is primarily research or artistic activity, or does not require enrollment in regular classes. All applicants are required to list a proposed affiliate, with some awards requiring a letter of affiliation to be submitted at the time of the application deadline.

Scanned versions of the original hard-copy letters with hand-written signatures should be uploaded into the application. Since affiliation letters are not confidential, you will upload the letter yourself into the online application system. Affiliation letters written in a foreign language must be translated into English and both the original letters and the English-language translations must be uploaded into the application.

Flexibility & Adaptability

Explain how you will adapt to working and living in a new environment in the host country. Consider the ways in which you have grown throughout your life that make you the individual you are today. How have you demonstrated these qualities in your academic, professional, or personal life?

Community Engagement

How will you integrate within and engage with your host community? How will you integrate within your host community (through extracurricular activities, hobbies, or volunteering), and how you can engage with these ideas and practices while on grant. In what unique ways do you plan to share your culture and values in your host community and learn from others? How do your lived experiences prepare you to represent the United States as a cultural ambassador?

Language Proficiency

Language requirements vary by country, so before starting the application you should review the specific language proficiency requirements of your selected award. You must complete the Language Self Evaluation form within the application, and register an individual to complete the Foreign Language Evaluation Form.

Recommendation Letters

You must submit three recommendation letters as part of the application. You should provide the recommender with a copy of your Statement of Grant Purpose before requesting the recommendation letter.

Transcripts

You must provide transcripts from all undergraduate and graduate institutions from which you received degrees. You may submit documentation of certificates (e.g. non-degree programs) only if relevant to your Fulbright Grant Purpose.

Arts Portfolio

All candidates applying in the creative and performing arts must submit a portfolio of their artistic work. The submitted arts portfolio should be a body of work that relates to the proposed project and best shows the applicant’s artistic strengths.

There is no option for ‘interdisciplinary’ or ‘multi-media’ arts, so applicants are responsible for choosing one field of study and adhering to the corresponding portfolio requirements.

Specific Creative Writing Portfolio Requirements

Applicants must select "Creative Writing" as the Field of Study in the application. The writing sample must be in the same genre as the Fulbright project. Playwrights, Poets, and Screenwriters should submit the text in the format appropriate to the genre. A maximum of ten pages of double-spaced text. Submitting more than ten pages of material will result in the application being deemed ineligible.

Examples of Fulbright Creative Writing Projects

Dana Kroos, a novelist, is in Newfoundland, Canada on her Fulbright fellowship.
Nicholas Gulig, a poet, went to Bangkok, Thailand.

Fulbright Programs with Creative Writing Focus

Ireland: Fulbright/University College Cork Masters in Creative Writing Award enables students to pursue a taught Masters in Creative Writing.
United Kingdom: John Wood LAMDA Award offers a one-year Masters in Classical Acting.

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