Scholarship Fund

A previous Paris Cafe Writing scholarship winner, Tenisia Davis, flew from Chicago to Paris  to join us for a week. It was a dream come true—for all of us.

The idea for the scholarship started in Chicago, where I had been teaching for 15 years at National Louis University. NLU is a large urban university, and many students are the first in their family to get a college degree.

I stood in these classes wondering what else I could do to help these students move forward with their writing lives. At the same time, I created Paris Café Writing—a week of writing and exploration in Paris. Many of my regular participants have told me the experience was “life changing.”

Voilà!

Through National Louis University, Paris Cafe Writing sponsors a scholarship for an NLU student to attend one of the week-long Paris Cafe Writing seminars.

I donate the first $1,700 and I will do that each year. This is the fee for a week of Paris Cafe Writing. It includes the writing sessions, six lunches or dinners, five breakfasts, a walking tour, a jazz concert and a few surprises.

But the future students will need more help than that.

Many of you donated—thank you! —and we were able to offer the scholarships. (To read more about our first winner, Janice Canty, in “We Have a Scholarship Winner,” click newsletter.)

Donations to the National Louis University/Paris Cafe Writing Scholarship fund may be tax deductible; see your tax advisor. Here are some ideas of what your donation could buy:

$1,200: roundtrip flight, Chicago to Paris

$165: first-time U.S. passport

$150: one of seven nights in a modest hotel

$100: a carry-on luggage or a one-in-a-lifetime French dinner

$50: a simple lunch, a bunch of Metro tickets, and a cafe-au-lait every day

$25: a book from Shakespeare and Company, and a couple really good chocolates

Our donation goal for 2024 is $4,000.

As scholarship donor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Julia Keller wrote to me: “If more people had a way to get their voices heard, it would be a very different world.”

To make a tax-deductible donation through the university giving site, click DONATE. The Paris Cafe Writing Scholarship is listed under the drop-down box “What would you like your donation to support?”

Thank you very much.

Patricia Tennison, director