2023 Winter Scholars

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

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.

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

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.



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 Review, North American Review, Asian American Literary Review, Aster(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

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

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 Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Modern Haiku, among others. You can find him on Instagram at @pradaphachan.


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
2022 Autumn Scholars

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 Review, CRAFT, and a Penguin Random House anthology. Her work has appeared in Ruminate Magazine, Sigma Tau Delta Rectangle, Jet 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 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 Magazine, About 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.
2022 Scholars
2022 Summer
Angie Sijun Lou
Autumn Fourkiller
Bahareh Keith
Bureen Ruffin
Carolina Hotchandani
Cathy Linh Che
Dana Fang
Em North
féi hernandez
Gisselle Yepes
Helen Armstrong
Jared Lemus
Laura Cresté
Lindsay Ferguson
Manuel Calvillo de la Garza
Riley MacLeod
Shir Kehila
Somi Jun
Sydney S. Kim
Uche Okonkwo
2021 Scholars
2021 Summer
Angela Flores
Chelsea B. DesAutels
Deborah Taffa
July Thomas
K Chiucarello
Kamden Hilliard
Laurie Thomas
Liz Iversen
Michelle Ruiz Keil
Nic Anstett
Nicole Homer
O-Jeremiah Agbaakin
Puloma Ghosh
Roman Johnson
Sarah Matsui
Scott Broker
Scott H. Hoshida
Sofia Barrett-Ibarria
Vanessa Chan
2021 YA
Alex Brown
Arriel Vinson
Channler Twyman
Elliot Thomas
Gail Upchurch
Jean Ferruzola
Lisa Ryan
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
2021 Winter
A. Meinen
Angelique Stevens
Christopher James Llego
Jeannetta Craigwell-Graham
Kimberly Reyes
Krys Malcolm Belc
Marissa Davis
Marlanda Dekine-Sapient Soul
Mark Kyungsoo Bias
Luke Dani Blue
Lydia Abedeen
Michaeljulius Y. Idani
Naphisa Senanarong
Reena Shah
Sabrina Imbler
Tatiana Johnson-Boria
Vincent Chavez
Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
2020 Scholars
2020 Summer
A. Andrews
Asa Drake
Colwill Brown
Danielle Batalion Ola
Delali Ayivor
Devyn Mañibo
El Williams III
Eliana Ramage
Joshua Max
Josha Jay Nathan
Kenechi Uzor
Sabrina Helen Li
Serena Morales
Sarah Wang
Yalitza Ferreras
Zahir Janmohamed