The Sirenland fellowship provides travel, room and board and fees for attending The Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. It is given to a writer who is in the process of completing a project, but has not published a book before March, 2009. The fellowship cannot be applied for; candidates are nominated by a panel of publishing professionals. All entries are read blind and the winner chosen by Dani Shapiro. The fellowship is sponsored by Antonio Sersale, the owner and manager of Le Sirenuse.

The 2009 Fellow is Robin Black. Robin's stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, most recently One Story, Colorado Review, The Southern Review and The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. I (Norton, 2007). A three time recipient of Special Mention from the Pushcart Prize and First Prize winner of the 2005 Pirate's Alley Faulkner/Wisdom Writing Competition (Short Story Category), Robin lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband, three children and Tibetan Terrier. Her first story collection Yesterday's News and a still untitled novel are both forthcoming from Random House and will also be published in six other countries – including Italy.

Sirenland would like to thank the following nominators:

• Nicole Aragi
• Maria Campbell
• The Dial Press
• Ecco Press
• Laura Furman
• Grove/Atlantic
• HarperCollins
• New York University Graduate Creative Writing Program
• One Story
• The Paris Review
• U.C. Irvine Graduate Creative Writing Program
• William Morris Agency
• Iowa Writers Workshop
• Maud Newton
• Brooklyn College MFA Program
• Sarah Burnes
• Hyperion/Voice

Previous Recipients

2008: Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
Saïd Sayrafiezadeh's essays and short stories have appeared in Granta, The Paris Review, Columbia Journal of Literature and Art, Open City, and elsewhere. He is currently writing a memoir to be published by Dial Press about his experiences growing up communist in the United States. Saïd lives in New York City.

2007: Dalia Sofer
Dalia Sofer was born in Iran and fled in 1982, at the age of 10, to the United States with her family. She received her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College in 2002 and has been a resident at Yaddo. She currently lives in New York City. Her acclaimed first novel, The Septembers of Shiraz, is published by Ecco Press.