“I came into my professional life through the arts – dance,” says Amy Beth Wright. “I think that the creative process is something I see in wanting to be a wine professional as well. You have to have versatility and creativity, imagination, and resilience.”

Last month, the Washington State Wine Commission announced Wright as this year’s recipient of the Allen Shoup Memorial Fellowship. (Full disclosure: I have consulted for the Commission since 2012 and sit on the panel that determines fellowship recipients.) This is the second year of the fellowship, which honors Washington wine pioneer Allen Shoup, long-time CEO of Stimson Lane (now known as Ste. Michelle Wine Estates) and founder of Long Shadows Vintners.

Shoup passed away in 2022. The fellowship is intended to continue his legacy by elevating emerging writers and communicators in the hopes of making them lifelong ambassadors for Washington wine.

Wright is a New York City-based writer and a professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase. She grew up outside of Philadelphia and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Dance from Oberlin College in Ohio.

After graduating, Wright pursued a career as a modern dancer. She had a dance company in Brooklyn for approximately six years before deciding to return to school.

“I had the sense that there was another part of my creative self that wasn’t being fully explored,” she says.

To follow that thread, Wright attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She subsequently received a Master of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in writing and creative non-fiction.

While completing her degree, Wright did an internship as a teaching assistant at SUNY Purchase College. She stayed on at the college after the internship, developed a curriculum, and started teaching. Now, as a professor at the college, Wright instructs classes on digital publishing, a creative non-fiction course called The Art of the Essay, and a foundational writing course.

Around 2012, and more intensively in 2015, Wright started to approach editors at various outlets to propose stories. Much of her early writing focused around travel.

“My husband and I are avid national parks travelers, and we travel quite a bit,” Wright says. “So based on being inspired through my travels, I started to reach out to editors.”

Wright’s stories led to invitations to visit areas. In 2018, she began to write about wine and found that it resonated, both with her and with her writing.

“I started to find a different clarity in my writing and in my writing voice,” Wright says.

In particular, Wright was drawn to regions that are in some state of transformation. “I was trying to tell stories of regions that are in new phases of identity or definition, having a metamorphosis of some sort,” she says.

To date, Wright has written about wine regions in Texas, Virginia, Oregon, Washington, and Georgia as well as global wine regions (France, Italy, Australia, and Spain) for Wine Enthusiast, The Vintners Project, and SevenFifty Daily.

Pitching articles for media placement is notoriously difficult, especially with legacy outlets contracting. For the Shoup Memorial Fellowship, applicants are required to propose several story pitches. It was one of the strengths of Wright’s application.

“You get better at proposing stories for specific publications the more you do it,” Wright says. “I read wine industry publications every day, but I also read other places I want to write for. I read what they’re publishing, what they’re interested in, and even what a headline structure looks like, trying to stay aware of what publishers and editors are looking for.”

Overall, Wright’s interests are broad. In addition to authoring numerous articles about wine, she recently edited a book of poetry on America’s parks and public lands. Wright has written about olive oil, apple cider vinegar, hot cocoa, cheese, oysters, and a variety of other topics. However, wine is currently her main focus.

Now, as the second Allen Shoup Memorial Fellowship recipient – Gwendolyn Elliott was the first – Wright will have an opportunity to focus her attention to Washington. The fellowship, which is funded entirely through donations, gives each recipient a stipend and an immersive experience in Washington wine.

Wright already has some experience with the state. She attended a media trip to Yakima Valley  and subsequently wrote an article about Snipes Mountain for Wine Enthusiast.

“My time in Washington has been abbreviated so far,” Wright says. “But I’m looking forward to learning more.”

A previous version of this article listed Amy Beth Wright as Connecticut-based. This has been updated to New York City-based.

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