Will Boast

Will Boast

John Guare Writers Fund Rome Prize, a gift of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman
September 7, 2015–July 29, 2016
Profession
Lecturer, Committee on Creative Writing, University of Chicago
Project title
The Aviary
Project description

I’m working on my third book, a novel currently titled The Aviary. It’s set in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2011 and follows a young woman with a rare neurological condition. It is, in part, a love story and is informed by Bernini’s sculpture of Apollo and Daphne. Granta Books has acquired the manuscript, and I’ll be looking to place it with a US publisher while in Rome. In addition, I’ll be drafting new short stories, most of them loosely themed around travel and immigration, with an eye toward updating those time-honored subjects to the twenty-first century. During my time at the Academy, I also plan to work on articles, essays, and screenplays.