Eliot Circular

Prof. Rock Wins Guggenheim

Photo by Leah Nash

Prof. Peter Rock [creative writing 2001–] won a Guggenheim fellowship to support work on Spells, a “fragmentary novel” that will be completed in collaboration with five photographers.

Prof. Rock got the idea for Spells years ago, while he was a security guard in an art museum. To pass the time, he would invent stories inspired by works in the museum’s collection. The final project will take the form of a book and a show at Portland’s Blue Sky Gallery in September 2015.

Rock has written six novels, most recently The Shelter Cycle, and a collection of stories, The Unsettling. “Rock is an exemplary professor, an innovative and dedicated teacher, and an innovative and dedicated novelist,” says Nigel Nicholson, dean of the faculty and Walter Mintz Professor of Classics [1995–]. 

Since 1947, 20 Reed professors and 82 alumni have earned Guggenheim fellowships, which are granted upon the basis of impressive achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.