Kim Cooper Selected as Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars
Kim Cooper, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the ninth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars.
Kim Cooper MFA '24, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the ninth Residential Teaching Fellow at Bennington Writing Seminars. The fellowship is the first of its kind in the country to offer full-time undergraduate teaching experience in a low-residency MFA format. Benefits include full tuition remission for one term, housing and board, and enrollment in an on-campus class. Cooper will begin in August.
“This competitive fellowship has been a great success for our MFA students who want to gain teaching experience, as well as for the undergraduates they mentor, and for each teacher,” said Mark Wunderlich, Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars. “Each term it gets more difficult to choose a fellow from our talented MFA candidates and we’re delighted to welcome Kimberly into the classroom this term.”
Cooper will be working with Bennington College literature and MFA faculty member Manuel Gonzales in his class, Screenwriting: The Story Studio. Her duties include grading, advising, assisting in the development of course materials, guest lecturing, and research, among other responsibilities, along with continuing her regular MFA coursework.
“I am honored and excited to join the Bennington classroom this Fall, and for the opportunity to work alongside Manuel. I have much to learn from him, and I suspect much to learn from Bennington students; it will be a gift to work among this community as we explore and write stories.”
Cooper is a New England-based writer currently living in Sheffield, Massachusetts. For the past eleven years, she taught high school English at a variety of independent schools and served as the Director of Equity & Inclusion at The White Mountain School. In 2018, she earned an MA in Literature from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English.
The competitive teaching fellowship is open to Bennington MFA students rising into their second, third or fourth term. Students are mentored 1:1 with the faculty member with whom they are working, and continue to work on their MFA coursework and manuscript.
For more information about the Bennington Writing Seminars, or to apply to the MFA program, please visit the website. The application deadlines are September 1 (for entry to the January term) and March 1 (for entry to the June term).