Henderson professor receives writing fellowship

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

ARKADELPHIA — Michael Ray Taylor, cave explorer, author and professor at Henderson State University, was awarded the 2009 Hagin-Kaye Travel Writing Fellowship by the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs.

Taylor, who teaches Mass Media Communications at Henderson, has authored three nonfiction adventure and science books and more than 100 articles for publications from National Geographic to Sports Illustrated. His proposal to write about his February 2009 adventure in Hawaii - exploring the second-longest lava tube in the world - received the judges’ award based on its “high sense of adventure as well as a profound respect for the natural world,” Writers’ Colony Executive Director Jennifer Hansen said.

Each year, the Writers’ Colony offers nearly a dozen fiction and nonfiction fellowships in genres such as culinary writing, short stories, poetry, young adult literature and business writing. The Hagin-Kaye Travel Writing Fellowship requested proposals that addressed global, national or local travel; conservation and preservation of historic sites and national wonders;

improving or broadening the travel experience with excellence of description; and making travel more available and accessible to people of all ages.

Taylor is working on a novel, a humor book and a series of natural history articles. He said that residency at the Writers’ Colony offers the kind of protected writing time that allows him to be intensely focused and productive.

“I’ve accomplished more writing in two weeks at the Colony than in the previous six months,” he said.

In addition to his books Cave Passages, Dark Life and Caves and his work as an expert adviser for PBS, National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, Taylor has written and directed short films. He is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing at the University of Arkansas.

Fellowships at the Writers’ Colonyat Dairy Hollow provide uninterrupted writing time, room and board. For more information or an application, visit www.writerscolony.org, contact director@writerscolony.org or call (479) 253-7444.

The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is a program of the Communication Arts Institute, a 501(c)3 organization.

Tri-Lakes, Pages 59 on 11/05/2009