The New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers has selected 15 gifted academics, nonfiction writers, and creative writers for its 26th class of Fellows in 2024–2025. The Cullman Center is an international fellowship program open to people whose work will benefit directly from access to the collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.
Books written at the Cullman Center have gone on to extraordinary acclaim and influence. In the last year alone, they have received a National Book Critics Circle Award, a National Book Award, and a Pulitzer Prize.
The coming year's Fellows were selected from a pool of 620 applicants from 66 countries and included a diverse range of academics, independent scholars, novelists, playwrights, poets, and others. They are:
- Academics Oleg Budnitskii, Joseph Giovannini, James Goodman, Jochen Hellbeck, Jennifer Morgan, and Sara Roy
- Fiction writers Isabella Hammad, Tracey Rose Peyton, and Patricio Pron
- Nonfiction writers Heather Clark, Leslie Jamison, Iman Mersal, Emma Tarlo, and Abigail Santamaria
- Graphic novelist Eric Orner
"The competition for this year's Fellowships was stiffer than ever," said Salvatore Scibona, the Sue Ann and John Weinberg Director of the Cullman Center. "The breadth and originality of the new Fellows' work blew us away."
Throughout the Fellowship term, which runs from September 2024 through May 2025, the new class of Cullman Center Fellows will have access to the renowned research collections and resources of The New York Public Library, as well as the invaluable assistance of its curatorial and reference staff. The Fellows receive a stipend of $85,000 and the use of a private office in the Cullman Center's quarters at the Library's landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.
The Center fosters an atmosphere of creative and scholarly collaboration both within the Library and in the larger cultural environment of New York, which includes hosting public Conversations from the Cullman Center, a series of free programs that focus on the books Fellows worked on while in residence at the Library.
Cullman Center Fellows regularly receive distinguished honors and awards for these books. Prize-winning and prominent past Fellows include: André Aciman, Annie Baker, Elif Batuman, David Bell, David Blight, Jennifer Croft, Hernan Diaz, Jennifer Egan, Álvaro Enrigue, Ada Ferrer, Nicole Fleetwood, Ruth Franklin, Rivka Galchen, Annette Gordon-Reed, Anthony Grafton, Steven Hahn, Saidiya Hartman, Hua Hsu, Mitchell S. Jackson, Patrick Radden Keefe, Nicole Krauss, Hari Kunzru, Hermione Lee, Larissa MacFarquhar, Megan Marshall, Ayana Mathis, Richard McGuire, Lynn Melnick, Pankaj Mishra, Lorrie Moore, Téa Obreht, Gregory Pardlo, Caryl Phillips, Darryl Pinckney, Lauren Redniss, Sally Rooney, Karen Russell, Stacy Schiff, Danzy Senna, James Shapiro, Dash Shaw, Mark Stevens, T. J. Stiles, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Brandon Taylor, Colm Tóibín, Justin Torres, Edmund White, Colson Whitehead, and Alejandro Zambra.
For more information about the Center, its current and former Fellows, and its programs for teachers and the general public, visit www.nypl.org/csw.
