Columbus State University’s Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians recently announced Aimee Bobruk, a Texas-based singer-songwriter, as the winner of the 13th annual Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellowship for Writers. As the fellowship recipient, Bobruk will live and work in Carson McCullers’s childhood home, the Smith-McCullers House, this fall.

Aimee Bobruk is an independent songwriter whose music straddles the genres of American folk and alternative rock. Most notably, her self-titled /ba.’brook/ was selected by Texas Music magazine as one of top six indie albums released in the state in 2013 and her work as been called “nothing short of a work of art” by Performing Songwriter.
 
In addition to writing and performing her own songs, Bobruk collaborates with songwriters and producers worldwide in the publishing industry. To date, her co-writes have earned her seven European title tracks, two of which were nominated for Grammy Awards in Germany and Norway. In 2015, her pop co-write “Black Swan,” competed in Melodifestivalen to represent Sweden at the international Eurovision Song Contest.
 
Bobruk has been engaged in three distinctive endeavors this year. In the spring, she embarked on a motorcycle ride along the Texas/Mexico border to capture a snapshot of life and culture for her self-produced documentary, The Texas Border Project. In the studio she reunites with avant-garde punk rock producer, Brian Beattie (Daniel Johnston, Okkervil River, Bill Callahan), and percussionist, Dony Wynn (Robert Palmer, Robert Plant), to tackle two conceptual EPs—one inspired by the writings of her favorite author, Carson McCullers, and the other by the history of the Mississippi River. Be it film or music, much of her inspiration derives from literature, film, and nature. Themes in her songwriting include, solitude, identity, surrealism, separation, elopement, and love’s illusions.
 
Some of Bobruk’s performance highlights include sharing the stage with the likes of Dr. John, Ian McLagan (The Faces, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan) Butch Hancock, Alejandro Escovedo, Freedy Johnston, Ruthie Foster, and Thao and The Get Down Stay Down.

During her residency, Bobruk will live and work at the Smith-McCullers House from September to December 2018. While in Columbus, she intends to work on completing her EP of songs based on the work of Carson McCullers.
 
Named in honor of Carson's parents, The Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellowship for Writers was inspired by McCullers's experience at the Breadloaf Writer's Conference in Vermont and, especially, the Yaddo Arts Colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. To honor the contribution of these residency fellowships to McCullers's work, the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians awards fellowships for writers to spend time in McCullers's childhood home in Columbus, Georgia. The fellowships are intended to afford the writers in residence uninterrupted time to dedicate to their work, free from the distractions of daily life and other professional responsibilities.