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 will be available in spring 2027.
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 (500-1000 words) about why you’d be a good candidate to sywc@sewanee.edu. Please submit this in addition to your 2026 financial aid application (due by 4/17/26).
Past recipients
Jayda Taylor, SYWC 2026
"Attending the Sewanee Young Writers Conference transformed my confidence and passion for writing and changed me for the better. The supportive nature of both the young writers and the instructors encouraged me to share my poetry not only through writing, but through spoken word. The incredible nightly readings by both instructors and young writers revealed a path and future in writing beyond my limited perspective. Beyond the excellent workshops and readings, Sewanee is a gorgeous campus with ample space to write and think, and with many opportunities to cultivate friendships. In my time at Sewanee, I found a smile in everyone. SYWC’s diversity in voice, perspective, and style allowed me to explore different types of poetry and learn many forms of expression in creative writing. This new knowledge allowed me to hone my own writing skills beyond anything I’d written before. Thanks to the Elizabeth Grammer Scholarship, I was able to learn from incredible writers and about myself; it truly is an invaluable opportunity and privilege."
Elizabeth Stanton, SYWC 2025
"The Sewanee Young Writers Conference was an immersive workshop unlike anything I have ever attended. With the conference also acting as a retreat, Sewanee is the perfect place to hold this camp. The scenery of the mountain and the people around me heightened my ability to write. I learned things in my poetry workshop that have allowed me to come away and create work better than I ever have. I loved getting to read the work I had labored over for two weeks aloud for the friends I made in the same stretch of time. SWYC gave me lifelong friends I am still in touch with and polished pieces that, for the first time, I felt proud enough to share. Without the Elizabeth Grammer Scholarship, I would not have been able to attend the conference due to financial restraints. Sewanee removed all barriers for me and allowed me to connect with the Mountain and my writing in a way I had never gotten to before."
