In case you are able to come to the Juniper Festival, where the first recipient of the James Foley prize will be celebrated, I am sending along this link.  We hope to see you in Amherst in April!

 http://www.umass.edu/englishmfa/juniper-literary-festival-2018

gratefully,

Noy Holland

on behalf of the MFA faculty and staff

Good people,

I want you to know that your abundant generosity means that our fundraising for the James Foley Memorial Prize has come to a happy conclusion.  We have established an endowment, and now the prize will be awarded in perpetuity. 

The first recipient, the first in the kinship line of courage and compassion, will be recognized at the upcoming Juniper Festival, which takes place April 6th and 7th on the Amherst campus.  Please join us if you can, and please know that we are lastingly grateful for your help carrying Jim’s spirit forward. 

With all best wishes,

Noy Holland

On behalf of the MFA program

Dear friends of Jim Foley,

Thank you greatly for your generosity!

We have slightly more than a week to go and slightly more than $500 remaining to raise to make this prize a reality.  

If you can think of others for whom this prize might resonate, please send the link  along.  And if there is any way you can make an additional contribution, of course we here in the MFA and Jim's friends far and wide will be lastingly grateful.

Take good care.

all best,

Noy

on behalf of the MFA for Poets and Writers  

Dear friends of Jim Foley:

I am writing with excellent news: through your generosity and the generosity of others, we have surpassed our initial 2017/18 fundraising goal for the James W Foley University of Massachusetts Memorial Prize.  I can’t thank you enough.  We are now less than $4000 away from having fully funded the endowment that will assure that this important prize will continue in perpetuity. 

I think we can make it.  We’re so close now.  And it’s clear that the sympathy and courage Jim exemplified are essential to the discourse—public and private, factual and imaginative; just as it is clear that writers, in every stage of their lives as writers, need a boost now and again, a sign that what they do and write matters, that it is recognized, celebrated, answered, needed.  

Thank you again, mightily, for your contribution. I’m so pleased we have gotten this far, and hope we can reach just that little bit farther—and make it real, make it last, this gesture that is for and of Jim, that asserts the value of selflessness and courage.

Here is that link again, https://minutefund.umass.edu/foleyprize. Please help us spread the word.

Gratefully,

Noy

Thanks to everyone who came out in the wintry weather to Haymarket for the benefit reading on December 11, and particular thanks to our three spectacular readers--Andrea Lawlor, Erin White, and Pamela Ryder.  

I want, too, to give hearty thanks to the English Department and the MFA Program/Juniper Institute, who have each made a generous donation directly to the endowment.  These funds don't show up on the Minute Fund site, but they have been added, nonetheless, and are a great boost to this renewed fundraising effort.

with gratitude and high hopes,

Noy Holland, on behalf of the MFA