Leslee Becker

Leslee Becker

Leslee.Becker@colostate.edu

Website: http://central.colostate.edu/people/leslee

   Fort Collins, CO

Leslee Becker teaches creative writing and literature at Colorado State University and has published a story collection, The Sincere Café. Her stories have appeared in Epoch, The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Iowa Review, New Letters, Nimrod, The Gettysburg Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. She has won several prizes and grants, including the Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize, the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society Prize, the Mid-List Press Award for Short Fiction, the Ludwig Vogelstein Award, and the Pennock Distinguished Service Award.

MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST

What did the Fellowship or Laureate mean to you at the time you received it?

The Fellowship made me feel honored and determined to live up to the faith the judges had in me.

What do you do now? Has your art evolved or changed?

I am still teaching and writing, having done both for decades now, and still finding challenges and excitement galore. My writing, though, has undergone unexpected changes. I finished a novel, a first for me, and my new stories are bolder. Click here to see what I've been up to: http://www.bostonreview.net/fiction/leslee-becker-severance-2014-aura-estrada-contest-winner

What is one piece of advice you would give to an emerging artist?

"Try again. Fail again. Fail better." (Samuel Beckett)

Briefly, how would you describe the state of the arts locally, as well as national and beyond?

Dismal