Two Emersonians Honored with Emerging Artist Grants

Not one, but two Emersonians were awarded highly prestigious St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist grants in literature this year.

Jennifer Zeuli, a candidate for an MFA with a concentration in nonfiction, and Lauren Hunt, MFA ’25, with a concentration in creative writing, recently learned they earned the grant.  

Zeuli was nominated by Writing, Literature & Publishing Distinguished Professor Jabari Asim, and Hunt was nominated by WLP Senior Distinguished Writer-in-Residence Julia Glass.

“Jennifer’s writing is well-organized, observant, and emotionally provocative. In addition, her prose style does justice to the strength of her ideas,” said Asim. “One of her essays described an experience that left her mind ‘crackling with sparks.’ That seems an apt description of the electric intellect at work behind her essays.”

On average, 75 to 100 writers are nominated each year, and about 15 to 20 individuals are awarded grants of $3,500.

“When I found out I got the grant I felt incredibly validated – recognized and taken seriously as a writer. I am really excited about where this could lead,” said Zeuli.

She was nominated based upon her essay, “ALICE in Wonderland,” which was published in Solstice Magazine. Zeuli will include the essay in the book-length memoir she is currently working on about her three decades as a public school teacher that addressed issues affecting public education and how they play out in schools.

The monetary award will significantly help Zeuli, who as a single mom of two daughters with special needs, said it is hard to get by on her salary as a full-time high school English teacher. Before this year, she did freelance work in the evenings, but was unable to do so because of grad school, and instead was going to take a summer job.  

“This grant allows me to concentrate on writing this summer and really get the project off the ground,” said Zeuli, a part-time grad student.

Zeuli said WLP Charles Wesley Emerson Professor Megan Marshall, WLP Professor and Graduate Program Director Mako Yoshikawa, and Asim, have all been wonderfully helpful in different ways.

“…every time Jabari Asim opened his mouth, I became a better writer. Megan Marshall’s biography class never failed to leave me with my mind spinning in a million different directions…” said Zeuli, adding that Yoshikawa is relentlessly encouraging.

Hunt Writing Book on Hunting and Cuisine Cultures

Glass said it was a privilege to work with Hunt on her first hundred-plus pages of a “smart, funny, suspenseful novel,” which served as Hunt’s thesis. She submitted the first 10 pages of the novel as part of her application for the grant.

“I already knew Lauren had imagination and talent to burn, and when someone this gifted comes my way, I apply the pressure!” said Glass. “Lauren rose to the occasion with diligence and ambition. I wanted her to get the fellowship so she could push through to the finish- because I can’t wait to find out how the novel ends!”

The novel is about a private chef who works for a family of deer hunters in the San Francisco Bay area.

“I tend to write dark things as a fiction writer,” said Hunt. She said the book reflects on issues such as meat consumption, luxury goods made from animals, and high-level gourmet food.

Hunt said earning the grant reenforced to her that she made a good decision in leaving a full-time job to go to grad school.

“Writing can be filled with rejection and feelings of doubt, but getting something like this was validating and encouraging,” said Hunt.

She plans on using the money to do further research for the novel to examine San Francisco area cuisine culture.

She also praised Glass, who she’s continued working with after graduating. “She has this uncanny ability to suggest these small changes or questions that bring things into clarity. That wisdom was so helpful for me.”

Hunt said she was drawn to Emerson’s MFA creative writing program to be connected to Boston’s literary arts scene, and to work for Ploughshares, which she accomplished. She praised Emerson’s workshop model, which helped her understand elements of writing that evoke strong emotional responses.

“Writing can feel organic, inspired, and magical, and it is all deliberate craft choices. The [the program provided] that recognition of how to do it in my own writing,” said Hunt. “It changed the process for me, and that really took my writing to the next level. Coming in and leaving the program, my writing is two totally different places.”