Literary Arts received 556 applications from writers and 31 applications from publishers for the 2024 fellowships. Out-of-state judges spent several months evaluating these applications, using literary excellence as the primary criterion.
Since 1987, Literary Arts has honored over 700 Oregon writers and publishers, and distributed more than $1 million in fellowships and award monies through the Oregon Book Awards & Fellowships program.
The 2024 Oregon Literary Fellowship Recipients will be honored at the 2024 Oregon Book Awards ceremony on April 8, along with the winners and finalists of the 2024 Oregon Book Awards. The ceremony will be hosted by Kwame Alexander.
Oregon Literary Career Fellowships
In 2024, Literary Arts awarded two Oregon Literary Career Fellowships of $10,000 each.
Eric Simons of Portland (drama), Writer of Color Oregon Literary Career Fellowship
Eric Simons (he/him) is a writer, improviser, teacher, producer, and Cool Dad™ hailing from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, yet he’s taken to swimming in the chilly rivers of Portland since 2015. He’s accumulated 20+ years of comedy experience from all across the contiguous US—and THREE CANADIAN PROVINCES—and he seeks to inject all that world-weary experience into his writing, his performing (Broke Gravy, the CVLT), and his teaching (Kickstand’s BIPOC Comedy Program).
Joe Wilkins of McMinnville (fiction), Oregon Literary Career Fellowship
Joe Wilkins (he/him) is the author of a novel, Fall Back Down When I Die, praised as “remarkable and unforgettable” in a starred review at Booklist. A finalist for the First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction and the Pacific Northwest Book Award, Fall Back Down When I Die won the 2020 High Plains Book Award. Wilkins is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, and four collections of poetry, including Thieve and When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award. Wilkins lives with his family in McMinnville, Oregon, where he directs the creative writing program at Linfield University.
Oregon Literary Fellowships
Literary Arts awarded fellowships of $3,500 to 8 writers and 2 publishers. Oregon Literary Fellowships are intended to help Oregon writers initiate, develop, or complete literary projects. Fellowships are also awarded to support Oregon’s independent publishers, small presses, and literary magazines.
FICTION
Kieran Mundy of Bend, Laurell Swails and Donald Monroe Memorial Fellowship
Kieran Mundy (she/her) is currently at work on a thematically linked short story collection that explores the intersections of chronic illness, wellness culture, climate change, and food. Her short fiction has appeared in Ninth Letter, Passages North, Gulf Coast, Joyland, and elsewhere, and has been recognized in Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2017 and 2019. She’s the recipient of Gulf Coast’s 2020 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose, judged by Jenny Offill, and a 2022 Best of the Net nominee. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Oregon and has received support for her work from Tin House, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Craigardan.
Evan Morgan Williams of Portland, Laurell Swails and Donald Monroe Memorial Fellowship
Evan Morgan Williams (he/him) has published over seventy-five short stories in literary magazines including The Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Alaska Quarterly Review, Witness, and The Antioch Review. He has published three collections of short stories: Thorn, winner of Chandra Prize at BkMk Press in 2014; Canyons: Older Stories in 2018; and Stories of the New West, published by Main Street Rag in 2021. Williams holds an MFA from the University of Montana, and he is a three-time mentor in AWP’s Writer to Writer Mentorship Program. He is retired after twenty-nine years of public school teaching.
NONFICTION
Karleigh Frisbie Brogan of Portland, Leslie Bradshaw Fellowship
Karleigh Frisbie Brogan (she/her) holds an MFA from Portland State University. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Entropy, NAILED, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2023 George Pascoe Miller Scholarship for the Community of Writers Summer Workshop (formerly the Squaw Valley Writer’s Conference), was a 2022 Rona Jaffe scholar for the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, received a 2020 Regional Arts and Culture Council grant, and received the 2019 Tom and Phyllis Burnam Award in nonfiction. Her work has also been supported by Tin House and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.
Rosanna Nafziger, Walt Morey Fellowship
Rosanna Nafziger (she/they) is a queer writer from a Mennonite community in West Virginia. She holds an MFA in fiction from Portland State and teaches creative writing in Portland, where she lives with her partner and children. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Shenandoah, River Teeth, West Branch, Gay Mag, Fourth Genre, Oregon Humanities, and elsewhere.
POETRY
Ami Patel of Portland, Writer of Color Fellowship
Ami Patel (she/her) is a queer, diasporic South Asian poet and young adult fiction writer. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, a Tin House YA Fiction alum, and an IPRC 2023-2024 re/source resident. Ami’s poetry is published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Moss, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets, and others.
Ösel Jessica Plante-Curl of Portland, Women Writers Fellowship
Ösel Jessica Plante-Curl (she/her) works at Portland State University and teaches poetry workshops at University of Portland. Her first collection, Waveland, was published by Black Lawrence Press in 2021. She is currently working on a second collection of poetry and a memoir. Her writing has appeared in Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions, Blackbird, Narrative, and Passages North, among others. She earned a MA from the University of North Texas, an MFA from University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a PhD in poetry from Florida State University.
YOUNG READERS
Makiia Lucier of Portland, Edna L. Holmes Fellowship in Young Readers
Makiia Lucier (she/her) is the author of Dragonfruit, Year of the Reaper, Isle of Blood and Stone, and A Death-Struck Year. Her stories are inspired by history and mythology and have been called “brilliant” (Booklist), “moving,” (The New York Times), “masterful” (Horn Book), and “breathtaking” (School Library Journal). They can be found on many notable lists, including the American Library Association’s “Best Fiction for Young Adults.” Makiia grew up on Guam and holds a graduate degree in library science. She is also a graduate of the University of Oregon School of Journalism.
DRAMA
Jenny H. Lee of Portland, C. Hamilton Bailey Fellowship
Jenny H. Lee (she/her) writes about Korean-American women who juggle personal dreams with societal and cultural expectations. Her feature screenplay Gajok was a quarterfinalist for the Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting. Jenny holds a BFA in painting and an MFA in design. She is currently working on a novel adapted from her television pilot screenplay, K-Town Women, and is also developing a personal narrative podcast, Voices Through Time.
PUBLISHERS
First Matter Press of Portland
First Matter Press began in 2018 by asking: What if it weren’t so difficult for first-time &/or experimental PNW writers to find a publishing home? Since then, their catalog has grown to 20 titles. They support fellow writers through a cohort model that engages editors and authors in reflective, horizontal collaboration, essential to nurturing literary craft.
Fonograf Editions of Portland
Initially founded in 2016, Fonograf Editions (FE) has published vinyl records (both full LPs and shorter EPs), full length poetry collections, poetry chapbooks, broadsides, essay collections, a novel, a magazine (featuring poetry, fiction, and nonfiction), and various other print and audio-based artifacts. All of those works have been literary in nature. FE was originally started as a vinyl literary record label and in 2019 moved into releasing print-based artifacts.
Fellowships to writers of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry were judged by a panel consisting of Alexia Arthurs, author of How to Love a Jamaican: Stories; Jessica Nelson, author of the memoir Joy Rides through the Tunnel of Grief; and Emily Skaja, poet and author of Brute.
The judge for young readers literature was author Lish McBride. Playwright Ana Candida Carneiro judged in drama. The fellowships for publishers were judged by Carmen Giménez, Publisher and Executive Director of Graywolf Press.
