Sacramento Historical Society
The purpose of the Sacramento Historical Society (SHS) is to preserve the heritage of the Sacramento region, to act as a resource for inquiries regarding local area history, and to promote a greater awareness of Sacramento’s regional and national history. For more information on the Sacramento Historical Society and their programs, visit: sachistoricalsociety.org
In 2022, the SHS undertook an effort to honor the life and legacy of Sacramento’s own Joan Didion, who attended SCC for a brief period in the 1950s and who went on receive to national and international acclaim and numerous honors for a lifetime of accomplishments as an essayist, journalist, and author of incomparable fiction.
As a result of their fundraising efforts, the SHS created and funded the Joan Didion Scholarship for Writers endowment at SCC, which will support aspiring writers at our college with an emphasis on English or journalism majors. Applicants will be invited to submit their best piece of writing and awarding of this scholarship will be a competitive process that will be evaluated by a committee of SCC faculty. In so doing, the SHS is supporting and inspiring the next generation of writers who will follow in Joan Didion’s footsteps.
Impact
The Joan Didion Scholarship for Writers will support SCC students who aspire to have a career in writing, with a preference for students majoring in English or Journalism. Students should submit their very best piece of writing in 1,000 words or less for review by a faculty committee. This can be writing they have completed for an SCC class (such as a creative writing, literature, composition, or journalism class), or work they have done outside of school. Essays that students have written as part of the scholarship application process are not eligible for submission. Depending on the submissions in any given year, the review committee may decide to award one scholarship or multiple scholarships, and/or may decide to award different scholarships for writing from different genres.