Fresno writer Roda Avelar, who earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Fresno State in 2020, won a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Among the largest awards offered to young poets in the United States, the $27,000 prize is intended to support exceptional U.S. poets between 21 and 31 years of age. As an undergraduate, Avelar worked as an editorial assistant for the university’s national literary magazine, The Normal School. She earned her master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside earlier this year.
