Three Fresno State graduate students studying fiction in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing have been awarded fellowships to the 2015 Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.

The fellowships, made possible for the third year in a row by Fresno State’s College of Arts and Humanities and the Division of Graduate Studies, guarantee admission to the competitive and highly regarded annual writing conference in Olympic Valley near Lake Tahoe. Fellowships cover full tuition, lodging and dinners for the week of writing workshops and events, July 6-13.

Each of the University’s fellows is a second-year graduate student, including Angela Corbett, Kourtnie McKenzie and Monique Quintana.

Corbett, who writes about strange Midwestern families like the one she has back home in Ohio, serves as the assistant managing editor for the online edition of The Normal School literary magazine.

McKenzie, who spends her time reading, writing and hunting for tea, coffee and chocolate, has been published in The Young Adult Review Network, the Barely South Review and others.

Quintana, who serves as president of the Chicanx Writers and Artists Association student group and also as an editorial assistant for The Normal School literary magazine, has been published in Flies, Cockroaches and Poets, Bordersenses and others.

The creative writing program’s participation in the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley is coordinated by Alex Espinoza, an associate professor of English who attended the conference in 2004 and 2005.

Espinoza returned to Squaw Valley in 2008 to read from his first novel, “Still Water Saints,” and he has served as a conference staff member since 2011, moderating workshops, holding one-on-one consultations with participants and sitting on panel discussions. His second novel, “The Five Acts of Diego León,” won a 2014 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.

“My involvement with the Community of Writers means a lot,” Espinoza said, “because I found a nurturing and supportive group of writers who helped me hone and develop my skills. I also found my literary agent there. I’m excited about having this opportunity, thanks to the support of deans José Diaz, Sandra Witte and James Marshall, to share this experience with three of our most gifted and promising creative writing students.”

For 45 summers, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley has brought together poets, prose writers and screenwriters for separate weeks of workshops, individual conferences, lectures, panels, readings and discussions of the craft and the business of writing.