ONLINE: Jacquelyn Thomas

press release: Jacquelyn Thomas is the first-place winner of the 2020 Wisconsin People & Ideas Fiction Contest. She recently returned to the Driftless Area, after living more than thirty years in a Madison housing project where she served as director of an on-site community learning center. Her nonfiction work has been published by Proximity Magazine and is forthcoming in the spring issue of Fourth Genre as runner-up in the Michael Steinberg Memorial Essay Contest. 

Since 2011 Shake Rag Alley has partnered with the Council for Wisconsin Writers (CWW), Wisconsin People & Ideas, and the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission through the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters to offer week-long residencies to their annual writing contest winners.

In the tradition established by Edenfred, the Terry Family Foundation’s artist residence in Madison, writers and poets are provided with a week of uninterrupted time to focus on a project of their choice.

Between the months of December through March, writers stay in Shake Rag Alley’s inspiring lodging facilities surrounded by the nurturing environment of historic Mineral Point’s artistic community. Visiting writers participate in workshops, readings, and/or community outreach activities, including Wednesday evening Winter Writers Reading Series author talks and discussions.

2020-21 readings and discussions offered virtually via Zoom.