The financial aid application
We are able to offer partial support ($1000) with conference tuition to a limited number of participants. The financial aid application is based on financial need and must be completed by a parent or guardian by 4/18/2025.
You can find the application here.
Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions!
The Elizabeth Grammer Scholarship
The Elizabeth Grammer scholarship offers full summer conference tuition to a single conference participant.
Dr. Elizabeth Grammer founded the SYWC in 1994 and directed it through the summer of 2023. In her three decades at the helm, she transformed the conference from a small experiment into a nationally renowned program with hundreds of applications each year. As a professor in the English department at Sewanee, Dr. Grammer inspired countless students, introducing them to the weird, wonderful landscape of early American literature and teaching them correct comma placement. If you attend the summer conference, you might catch her at karaoke night or our closing dance!
Dr. Grammer’s work as a teacher and conference director has been characterized by her care for her students, colleagues, and community. Our creative and academic undertakings are inextricably tied to the joys and challenges of our everyday lives and relationships, and Dr. Grammer led with this truth always at the heart of her work. In her teaching and her directorship of the conference, she opened doors to new possibilities for the people around her, and problem-solved with empathy and understanding.
The Elizabeth Grammer scholarship is given to a student who embodies these same qualities. Have you identified a need in your community, and founded a group or an organization to meet that need? Has your own creative practice been bolstered by your encouragement and support of others’ creative lives? Are you involved in service work that has helped you see and strengthen the networks of connection around you?
If so, we want to hear about it! To apply for the Elizabeth Grammer scholarship, please send a short essay about why you’d be a good candidate to sywc@sewanee.edu. Please submit this in addition to your 2025 Financial Aid application (due by 4/18/25).
