Homer poet Erin Hollowell is among five Alaska literary artists awarded a $5,000 Alaska Literary Awards fellowship funded by the Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation in partnership with the Alaska State Council on the Arts. Also receiving awards were Ernestine Hayes, mixed genre, Juneau; Joan Kane, poetry, Anchorage, King Island and Mary’s Igloo; Susanna Mishler, poetry, Anchorage, and Frank Soos, fiction and essays, Fairbanks. About 100 artists applied. The Alaska Literary Awards are made possible through a donation by Peggy Shumaker and Joe Usibelli to the Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation.

“We want the Alaska Literary Awards to recognize their excellence and to support accomplished writers while they create new art,” Shumaker and Usibelli said.