Storyknife Writers Retreat received 97 applications for residencies during 2018. The selection committee was incredibly impressed by the quality of the work they received. It was difficult to narrow it down to the three writers who will have a chance to spend time devoted to their writing at Storyknife this year. We are so proud to announce the following three amazing writers are our 2018 Storyknife fellows. I hope you will join us in congratulating them!
Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart’s Traffic (Arktoi/Red Hen Press, 2009) and recombinant (Kelsey Street Press, 2017).They are a Kundiman, Lambda and Callaloo Fellow and a member of the Macondo and Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundations writing communities. Chen is also the co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press, 2011; AK Press 2016) and Here Is a Pen: an Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets (Achiote Press, 2009). Their work has appeared in The Best American Experimental Writing, The &NOW Awards 3: The Best Innovative Writing, and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics. A poetry editor of the Texas Review, they currently teach creative writing at Sam Houston State University. www.chinginchen.com
Sharbari Ahmed’s fiction has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Asian Pacific American Journal, Catamaran, Caravan Magazine, Inroads, and Wasafiri among others and is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly. She was on the writing team for Season One of the TV Series, “Quantico” on ABC. Most recently she wrote the screen adaptation of Mitali Perkin’s Middle Grade novel Rickshaw Girl. Her debut book The Ocean of Mrs. Nagai: Stories was released in November 2013 by Daily Star Books. She is a Tribeca All Access Fellow for her screenplay Raisins Not Virgins. She is on the faculty of the MFA program at Manhattanville College and the Film Television MA Program at Sacred Heart University. She was born in Bangladesh and raised in New York, Connecticut and Ethiopia and lives in Darien, CT.
Casandra Lopez is a Chicana and California Indian (Cahuilla/Tongva/ Luiseño) writer who’s received support from CantoMundo, Bread Loaf and Jackstraw. She’s been selected for residencies with SAR and Hedgebrook. Her chapbook, Where Bullet Breaks was published by the Sequoyah National Research Center and her poetry collection Brother Bullet is forthcoming from University of Arizona press. She’s a founding editor of As Us and teaches at Northwest Indian College.
A huge thank you to our amazing selection committee. We are so looking forward to this summer!