Two Purdue MFA alumni join the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows
Corey Van Landingham and Jessica Jacobs, two Master of Fine Arts alumni from Purdue University's College of Liberal Arts, were selected based on their prior career achievements and exceptional promise for the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Van
Landingham and Jacobs, who both studied English and creative writing in College of Liberal Arts’ Department of English, were chosen through a rigorous application and peer review process from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants and will be joining 198 distinguished individuals working across 53 disciplines. Each fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions,” according to the Guggenheim Fellowship, which was founded in 1925 by U.S. Sen. Simon Guggenheim.
Van Landingham received her MFA in 2012 and serves as associate professor of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of "Antidote" (The Ohio State University Press, 2013), "Love Letter to Who Owns the Heavens" (Tupelo Press, 2022) and "Reader, I" (Sarabande Books, 2024).
Jacobs received her MFA in 2013 and is the author of "unalone," poems in conversation with the Book of Genesis (Four Way Books, March 2024), which named one of Library Journal's best poetry books of the year, and "Take Me with You, Wherever You're Going" (Four Way Books, 2019).
"The Guggenheim Fellowship celebrates a century of support for the lives and work of visionary scientists, scholars, writers and artists," said Edward Hirsch, award-winning poet and Guggenheim Foundation president. "We believe that these creative thinkers can take on the challenges we all face today and guide our society towards a better and more hopeful future."
Click here to learn more about the 2025 Class of Guggenheim Fellows.