We’re thrilled to introduce the 2026 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipients with individual profile features on our blog. Out-of-state judges spent several months evaluating the 400+ applications we received, and selected eight writers and two publishers to receive grants of $4,000 each. Literary Arts also awarded two Oregon Literary Career Fellowships of $10,000 each. The 2026 Fellowship recipients were recognized at the 2026 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony on April 20, and a public reading event featuring this year’s Fellows will take place on Monday, June 29 at the Literary Arts Bookstore.
Follow along as we roll out profiles of this year’s Fellows throughout the summer to learn more about some of the most exciting writers at work today in Oregon. And if you feel inspired after reading, consider applying for a 2027 Oregon Literary Fellowship yourself—applications are now open and will close on August 7, 2026.
Molly Reid’s debut collection of stories, The Rapture Index: A Suburban Bestiary, won the seventh annual BOA Short Fiction Prize and was longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham for Debut Short Story Collection prize. Individual stories of hers have appeared on NPR and in the journals TriQuarterly, Crazyhorse, Ninth Letter, West Branch, and Witness, among others. She received her PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati and currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
Q & A WITH LITERARY ARTS
What excites you the most about receiving an Oregon Literary Fellowship?
Being recognized in this way by Literary Arts, an organization that has done so much to foster literary community and support writers in Oregon, makes me feel a part of this community, which is everything. The fellowship came at a particularly challenging time for me career-wise—multiple projects had fallen apart in different ways and I was questioning what I was doing and why. I’d just started a new project that was a bit out of my comfort zone, and it gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going.
How would you describe your writing process or creative practice?
I generally like to spend an hour or two in the morning writing, along with an hour or two in the evening, a kind of bookend. But beyond that butt-in-seat work, I really try to take time every week to nurture my creative self, which I think is just as important—long walks in the woods, reading, staring out the window, etc.. Even though these things don’t seem like the work, they’re not quantifiable in the same way (I’m not making any money or producing anything), they’re necessary to keep that dreaming part of my brain alive.
What authors or books have shaped you the most as a writer?
So many authors and books have shaped me as a writer. Probably Virginia Woolf and Shirley Jackson the most. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The Haunting of Hill House, To the Lighthouse, and Mrs. Dalloway are books that I like to return to for inspiration and pleasure.
Are there any Oregon writers you look to for motivation or inspiration?
There are so many incredible Oregon writers. I just finished Karen Thompson Walker’s The Strange Case of Jane O., which blew me away and I now need to read everything she’s written. And of course, the O.G. Ursula K. Le Guin, master of scene and heart.
What writing projects are you working on right now?
I’m currently working on a novel about five friends stranded in a snowstorm at an old sanitorium-turned-hotel, based on Hot Lake Springs Resort in Eastern Oregon. Dipping my toes into horror. I’m also working on a couple of short stories.
Do you have any advice for future applicants?
It’s been said before, but keep applying! I applied for years before receiving the fellowship. Also, I would say send the work you think is most you, the work you might be afraid other people will think is too weird. The stuff that excites and scares you. (And that way, even if you don’t get a fellowship, you know you didn’t play it safe—as a writer, safe is kind of the worst adjective I can think of as applied to one’s work).
WRITING SAMPLE EXCERPT
The following excerpt is taken from the opening of Molly’s short story ‘Keeping Track’.
JUDGE’S CITATION
“Molly Reid’s finely crafted stories reveal the illusion of coherence. Her prose is incisive and probing. Her characters are tender and faltering, failing each other and themselves. In her work, there are truths that we’d prefer not to know.”
— Raghav Rao
Applications for the 2027 Oregon Literary Fellowships are now open. The deadline to apply is Friday, August 7, 2026.
