On September 5, 2008, Joshua Booton, a 2003 graduate of the University of Oregon, was awarded a three-year James A Michener Fellowship in Creative Writing from the University of Texas Michener Center for Writers. The program is considered one of the five most highly selective programs in the country and is consistently ranked as one of the top ten graduate programs in creative writing.

Booton's poetry sample was chosen out of more than 700 submissions in fiction, playwriting, poetry and screenwriting and he becomes one of the twelve newly admitted fellows. Each new fellow receives free tuition, a $25,000 annual stipend for three years with no teaching responsibility, and a $6,000 professional development fund for travel and research. During the three year program, students are required to work in two of the four disciplines offered – fiction, poetry, playwriting and screenwriting.

The Michener Center's MFA program started in 1993 after Pulitzer-prize winning novelist James Michener endowed the University of Texas with $18 million to support a writing program.