To Cunningham, the Fine Arts Work Center is one of a kind.
We are so excited to share this great feature on Michael Cunningham in GBH’s The Culture Show titled “Michael Cunningham grapples with pandemic in new novel ‘Day’“
Michael Cunningham is a Fine Arts Work Center board member, and more than 40 years ago, he became a beloved Fellow. Cunningham says that “most young writers, certainly me and I think a lot of new writers, are doing it in isolation, feeling increasingly insane for doing it at all. For many of us, this is our first entry into a world in which what you’re doing is taken seriously.”
The landscape and experience of the Cape in its off-season, according to Cunningham, is “distinctly magical. … It’s this sort of sand bar at the very end of Cape Cod, it’s not on the way to anything else. It’s all sand; it’s all dunes and little dwarf trees.” He distinctly remembers “lots of long walks on soggy beaches” during his time as a fellow.
To Cunningham, the Fine Arts Work Center is one of a kind.
“It doesn’t require any kind of publishing track record,” he explained. “It probably, if anything, prefers that you are promising, of course, but really new at this. If there is anything even remotely like that, I’m unaware of it.”
Read “Michael Cunningham grapples with pandemic in new novel ‘Day’” by Jared Bowen and Molly McCaul, published in WGBH on November 8, 2023.
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