Recent MFA graduate, Anthony Yarbrough recently received the first-place Larry Morris Memorial Scholarship, an educational and travel scholarship intended to encourage and support a graduate level academic project in the field of mystical or spiritual literature, through an annual award. The project for which Anthony was awarded the scholarship is a novella titled, A Body of Water. This project follows two gay men—professional swimmers and artists—who use their bodies, intellects, intuition, and relationship with each other to navigate the world of young adulthood. This project is a sincere investigation of the relationships between art and athleticism, spirituality and the natural world, and trauma and the restoration of agency.
Yarbrough is a recent graduate and writer from Los Angeles whose fiction and nonfiction explore memory, sexuality, addiction, spirituality, trauma, and the restoration of agency. From 2022-2023 he served Blue Mesa Review as its Fiction Editor, and from 2023-2024 he served as its Editor-in-Chief.
Second-year MFA student, Gwyneth Henke earned a second-place award in the 2024 Larry Morris Memorial Scholarship for her project on recognizing mystical and contemplative theology in her ongoing lyric essay project which is part of her graduate coursework. Hillsidesource.com describes her project as one that “could potentially impact psychiatric and medical treatment of anorexia, by questioning and re-framing current psychiatric concepts in light of medieval mystical practices, particularly with regard to current assumptions of both cause and treatment models for anorexia in women.”
For more information on the winners of the Larry Morris Memorial Scholarship, click here.
