Congratulations to the 2025-26 Visiting Fellows & Scholars of Note!
The American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship Program is sponsored by The de Groot Foundation, and provides writers with the ability to pursue a creative project in Paris for a month or longer while participating actively in the life of the American Library.
The 2025-26 Visiting Fellows are R. O. Kwon and Rasheed Newson.
R. O. Kwon is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Exhibit, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Kwon’s bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award and the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Prize. Kwon coedited the bestselling Kink, a New York Times Notable Book. Her books have been translated into seven languages and named a best book of the year by over forty publications. Other writing has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and elsewhere. At the Library, Kwon will work on her third novel, which is about a Korean American woman who plans a heist of historically significant art.
Rasheed Newson is the author of the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me. The novel was a Lambda Literary finalist for Gay Fiction and was named one of the “100 Notable Books of 2022” by the New York Times. His forthcoming novel, There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood, is slated for publication by Flatiron in 2026. Rasheed is also a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner. Along with his screenplay writing partner, T.J. Brady, Newson co-developed and is an executive producer of Bel-Air. At the Library, Newson will be conducting research for a novel about a the experience of a gay, African-American, male runway model with a dark complexion, who becomes a brief international sensation during Paris Fashion Week in 1992.
The 2024-25 Scholars of Note are Brenda Withers, Dr. Eve L. Ewing, and Lilly Dancyger.
Brenda Withers is a playwright, theater artist, and founding member of the Harbor Stage Company on Cape Cod. Her plays (The Ding Dongs, Off Peak, Matt & Ben) have been produced Off Broadway and across the United States and have earned her the Clauder Prize, an Edgerton Award, and the Modern Works Festival grand prize. She has enjoyed residencies with New Georges, the Camargo Foundation, and the Huntington Theatre. Withers is a lyricist with BMI’s Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop, a graduate of Dartmouth College, and a beach person. At the Library, Withers will be working on the libretto for an original musical about the life of Julia Child.
Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a writer, scholar, and cultural organizer from Chicago. She is the award-winning author of several books, including most recently Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, an instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller. She works across genres, also penning works in theater, television, and comics. Ewing is an associate professor in the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago. At the Library, Ewing will be working on a collection of essays about the joy and craft of bread and what it reveals about society, culture, history, and communities.
Lilly Dancyger is the author of First Love: Essays on Friendship, and Negative Space. Her work has been published by the New York Times, The Atlantic, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Guernica, Literary Hub, and more. Dancyger is the recipient of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award, the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from Sewanee, the Indiana Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, and an Artist Fellowship in nonfiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She lives in New York City and teaches at the Randolph College low-residency MFA program. At the Library, Dancyger will work on a book-length three-part essay about ballet as an artform and a physical practice, chronic pain, and the mind/body connection.