Alison C. Rollins

Alison C. Rollins, born and raised in St. Louis city. She was awarded a 2023-24 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship and named a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow in 2019. A Cave Canem and Callaloo fellow, her work, across genres, has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Gulf Coast, Iowa Review, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection, Library of Small Catastrophes (Copper Canyon Press, 2019) was a 2020 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award nominee. Alison holds an MFA from Brown University and an MSLIS from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her second collection, Black Bell, was released by Copper Canyon Press in spring 2024.

The Value of Support

"As a black queer woman, the support of the Rona Jaffe has proved necessary and extremely impactful to my development as a writer. The network of award recipients is a strong and inclusive community that genuinely functions to be supportive and uplifting. The Writer’s Award has allowed me to travel internationally and to conduct research for my current creative projects. The financial support has greatly aided me in the completion of my first collection of poetry, Library of Small Catastrophes (Copper Canyon Press), and has helped me to take greater risks in developing my craft. Overall, receiving this Writers’ Award will allow me to devote more time to my writing and to take on more ambitious projects across genre. The financial support has allowed me to offset educational student loan costs, attend conferences, and promote my debut book."