Waterston Desert Writing Prize
Tara Fitzgerald – 2016 Prize Winner
Tara FitzGerald’s winning submission, “No Water of Their Own,” focused on the desertification of Central Asia’s Aral Sea. Her project addresses what happens when a sea becomes a desert, and when a sea people, therefore, become desert people. FitzGerald also plans to explore what will happen to the desert formed on the desiccated sea bed if the sea does come back.
She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from Oxford University in the UK. Fitzgerald’s nonfiction writing has appeared in Guernica, Vela and the Common, among others. She has completed residencies at Art Farm and the Kimmel Nelson Harding Center for the arts. Fitzgerald was based in Mexico City for six years as a freelance report, writing for publications including Monocle, Wallpaper, Esquire Latin America. Food and Wine and Departures Magazine. Prior to her work in Mexico, she was a staff writer for Reuters news agency, based in the United Kingdom, Germany, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.