Scholars
2023 Winter Scholars
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Akhim Alexis

Akhim Alexis is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago who holds an MA in Literatures in English from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. He is the winner of the Brooklyn Caribbean Lit Fest Elizabeth Nunez Award for Writers in the Caribbean. He was also a finalist for the Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction, the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, the Grist Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors Contest and the Johnson and Amoy Achong Caribbean Writers Prize for poetry. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Chestnut Review,  and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @akhimalexis1

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Amanda Churchill

Amanda Churchill is a writer living in Texas. Her work has been featured in Hobart Pulp, Witness, River Styx, among others. She holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of North Texas and was a Writers’ League of Texas 2021 Fellow. Her first novel, THE TURTLE HOUSE, is forthcoming from Harper Books.

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Anthony Garrett

Anthony Garrett is a novelist and full-time parent. He received his MA in writing from Johns Hopkins University. Despite daily effort, he struggled to write for several years post graduation before he learned of his lifelong undiagnosed ADHD and sought treatment for it. His writing embraces a neurodivergent poetics that eschews traditional forms. He is working on a novel titled Neither Themselves nor Each Other. Anthony lives in Salt Lake City with his spouse and children. Twitter: @anthgarrett, Instagram: @anthgarrett

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Beina Xu

Beina Xu is a writer and visual artist based in Berlin, Germany. She usually makes things about archives, colonialism, and desire. Her nonfiction can be found at The Common, Jezebel, Deutsche Welle and Westend, among other outlets, and she's currently working on a book. Her essay film Forget Alberto For Now (2020) debuted at International Film Festival Rotterdam, and has gone on to win several awards. She can be found at www.beinaxu.com or on instagram at @auslaender.salad. 

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Giovannai Rosa

Giovannai Rosa is a writer, artist, and mangrove research assistant from Miami. They're the winner of the 2022 Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest in Poetry and a 2022 Periplus Fellow. They are @giovarosawrites on Twitter

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Jack Foraker

Jack Foraker is a writer from Yolo County, California. His fiction has been supported by the Elizabeth George Foundation, Aspen Words, and UC Irvine, where he received an MFA. He's based in Los Angeles and working on a novel and stories. Find him @jackfracker across socials and at jackforaker.com. Social media: @jackfracker on Twitter and Instagram

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Julian Guy

Julian Guy (he/they) is a trans and queer writer and educator born in Reno, NV currently residing in Syracuse, NY. Julian's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Queerlings, Swamp Pink, HAD, Catapult, The Adroit Journal, Lesbians are Miracles, and more. He is a Nonfiction Editor with Variant Literature and runs the newsletter Serotinous Fruit. Julian is passionate about plants, ice cream, and the color pink. Find Julian online at his website, julianguy.com, or at the ocean studying seaweed. Julian is currently querying for a queer coming-of-age poetry book, and working on their next collection. Twitter: @aboy_bug, www.julianguy.com

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Leila Christine Nadir

Leila Christine Nadir is an Afghan-American writer and socially engaged artist whose work appears in literary and scholarly journals, in museums and galleries, and in forests, classrooms, and kitchens. She's working on a memoir that examines the global geopolitics that invade our living rooms and the intimate violences that reverberate across the planet. Her essays have been published in Black Warrior ReviewNorth American ReviewAsian American Literary ReviewAster(ix), and ASAP/J. She has a PhD in literature from Columbia University, and in 2022-2023 her memoir project has been supported by a MacDowell Fellowship, Hedgebrook Fellowship, Aspen Summer Words Emerging Writer Fellowship, MWPA Ashley Bryan Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts American Rescue Grant. Find her on Twitter @afghanvegan or at www.leilanadir.xyz. Social media: Twitter @afghanvegan

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Mitch Monroy

Mitch Monroy (él/elle / he/they) is a trans Guatemalan poet, multimedia artist, and coffee technician by trade. Their family sought asylum in America, escaping Guatemala’s civil war. Their projects explore this tradition of absence and trans realities across borders. Their past works have been featured at The Parrish Art Museum, and Ashawagh Hall. They also organized and founded Queer Lit Dreams, a program at LAMBDA LitFest LA. They currently reside in Chicago, IL. Find them: Twitter @mitchhmonroy & Instagram @mitch_monroy

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Prad Aphachan

Prad Aphachan is the pen name of a writer, poet, and artist from Thailand. He is currently based in Bangkok where he teaches and writes. He has received scholarship support from Tin House, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Community of Writers Workshop. He is the author of the poetry-calligraphy chapbook “10,000 Ways to See the Monsoon” published by Ruammitr Collective Press. His writings have appeared in The Chicago ReviewChicago Quarterly Review, and Modern Haiku, among others. You can find him on Instagram at @pradaphachan.

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Remi Recchia

Remi Recchia is a trans poet and essayist from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is a PhD candidate in English-Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University. Remi currently serves as the Book Editor for Gasher Press and also works as a technical editor. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Remi’s work has appeared in World Literature TodayBest New Poets 2021Columbia Online JournalHarpur Palate, and Juked, among others. He holds an MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University. Remi is the author of Quicksand/Stargazing (Cooper Dillon Books, 2021) and Sober (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2022) and the editor of Transmasculine Poetics: Filling the Gap in Literature & the Silences Around Us (Sundress Publications, forthcoming). Social Media: Twitter: @steambbcrywolf , Instagram: @remi_dreamer, Website: www.remirecchia.com

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Thalia Williamson

Thalia is a British author based in Los Angeles. She is currently completing an MFA in Creative Writing at UC Riverside and will soon begin a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature at USC. She is the author of a memoir, Things Bad Begun, and is at work on another, The Silent Part. Her work has been published in The Audacity and Longreads. An excerpt of The Silent Part is forthcoming in Joyland. She is trans. Twitter - @authordrw -Instagram - @thaliawme

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Tola Sylvan

Tola Sylvan is a poet and writer from Massachusetts. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vallum, POETRY, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. She currently reads poetry for The Adroit Journal.

2022 Autumn Scholars

Amber Blaeser-Wardzala

Amber Blaeser-Wardzala is an Anishinaabe writer, beader, fencer, and Jingle Dress Dancer from White Earth Nation in Minnesota. A current MFA Fiction Candidate at Arizona State University, her writing is forthcoming from Tahoma Literary ReviewCRAFT, and a Penguin Random House anthology. Her work has appeared in Ruminate MagazineSigma Tau Delta RectangleJet Fuel Review, and others. Blaeser-Wardzala is a former fiction fellow for the inaugural Women’s National Book Association Authentic Voices Program. In 2022, her novel in-progress was shortlisted for the Granum Foundation Prize. She is the current Nonfiction Editor for Hayden’s Ferry Review.

Gretchen Potter

Gretchen Potter is a citizen of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation from western New York State who lives in Southern California with her three children, three cats, and (shh) two rats. Her fiction is current or forthcoming in Room MagazineAbout Place Journal, and The Hopkins Review. She has received fellowship support from Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Key West Literary Seminar, the Barbara Deming Foundation, and Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, as well as residencies from Hedgebrook, Storyknife, and the Vermont Studio Center. She's writing a linked story collection about the chaos and wonder that follows when a Seneca tribe wins a major land claims case.

Martha Pham

Martha Pham is a writer from Massachusetts. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Electric LiteratureNurtureSerious EatsThe Kitchn, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is at work on a novel.

2022 Scholars
2021 Scholars
2020 Scholars