BOONE— Appalachian State University professor Joseph Bathanti has received a $10,000 North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship Award. Bathanti is one of 18 North Carolina artists receiving the award presented for literary arts and musical composition.

“Fellowships are a tangible acknowledgment of the important work that artists create in our communities,” said Mary B. Regan, executive director of the North Carolina Arts Council. “Artists enhance our culture and enliven our economy. They deserve acclaim and affirmation for the positive impact they make in the lives of North Carolinians.”

Bathanti is a professor of creative writing and co-director of the university’s Hughlene Bostian Frank Visiting Writers Series. His collection of short stories, “The High Heart,” was chosen as the St. Andrews College One Book, One Community 2008 Summer Reading Book.

This year, he received the 100 Scholars Research Award given annually by Appalachian to recognize exemplary research or creative activities of a tenured faculty member. He served as guest editor of the inaugural issue of The Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing.

“This is especially an honor to receive this award for two genres – this year’s award for fiction and an award in 1995 for poetry,” Bathanti said. “It’s a terrific boost for any writer to receive this kind of state recognition.”

Bathanti is currently writing the second novel in a trilogy that began with the novel “East Liberty” set in the nearly vanished little Italy area of Pittsburgh where he grew up.

“Because this year’s award is for fiction, I feel especially committed to trying to get this project completed. When others show that kind of faith in you it does spur you toward action,” he said.

A former N.C. Arts Council Visiting Artist, Bathanti is the author of “They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina’s Visiting Artists 1971–1995.” He also won an artist fellowship in 1995.

Recipients of the N.C. Arts Council Fellowship Award are selected by discipline-specific panels comprised of experienced writers, composers and songwriters. Since the program’s inception in 1980, more than 500 artists have received awards.

The artist fellowship program operates on a two-year rotating cycle by discipline. While jazz and classical music composers, songwriters, playwrights, screenwriters, spoken-word artists and writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction and literary translation were selected for awards this year, applications are being accepted through Nov. 2 for choreographers, craft, film and video and visual artists for next year’s grants.

As creative workers comprise more than 4 percent of North Carolina’s total employment with total wages of more than $3.9 billion, artists are an asset to the state’s communities. Additionally, their work promotes cross-cultural understanding and continued learning through the arts.

The N.C. Arts Council is a division of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture.

For more information visit www.ncarts.org.

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