Melanie Beth Curran, oldest daughter of Brendan and Amy Curran, and granddaughter of Bonnie and Walt Johnsen of Bainbridge Island, has been awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship to France in 2019-20.

She will travel to Brest and affiliate with the Université de Bretagne Occidentale, where she will conduct a creative writing project around the traditional musical community of Finistère.

Curran is a proud graduate of Bainbridge High School and the Evergreen State College.

In May, she will earn her MFA in fiction from The New School in Manhattan, and return to the Pacific Northwest to play music at the Folklife Festival and other venues.