Meet Alex Cain, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her historical fiction novel, The Body in the Greenhouse. The Body in the Greenhouse, a mystery set at Harvard in 1948, explores ... [Read More]
Grants for Writers
Winshen Liu Wins the Adrift Chapbook Contest
Congratulations to Winshen for winning the Driftwood Press Adrift Chapbook Contest! A number of the poems from this chapbook were a part of Winshen's COURAGE to WRITE application. Congratulations on a ... [Read More]
Nishant Batsha explores parenthood within our digital and analog lives
Meet Nishant Batsha, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on his novel, A Superfluous Man. A Superfluous Man explores what it means to care for children at this fraught moment, all while ... [Read More]
Conor Bracken decolonizes the hypermasculinity of fatherhood
Meet Conor Bracken, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on his poetry collection, Our Children and the War Grow Big Enough to Learn Each Other's Names. Our Children and the War Grow Big ... [Read More]
Liz Breen explores the erotic charge often present in pedagogy
Meet Liz Breen, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Grantee working on her memoir, Ungroomed. Ungroomed explores the erotic charge often present in pedagogy and how, for many young women, this charge can lead ... [Read More]
Azra Liaqat Khan reflects on race, class, & labor politics
Meet Azra Liaqat Khan, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Grantee working on her memoir, Mona: The Memoir of a Muslim Stripper. Mona: The Memoir of a Muslim Stripper recounts a professor’s years working in ... [Read More]
Leo Ríos writes about the capacity for change, growth, & healing
Meet Leo Ríos, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Grantee working on his short story collection, Carta Blanca. A Mexican-American teenager journeys from California’s Central Valley to Los Angeles and must ... [Read More]
Karolina Letunova shows how distance distorts an immigrant’s reality
Meet Karolina Letunova, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her novel, Siberian Summer. Spanning a century in Western Siberia and two weeks in WA state, Siberian Summer is about ... [Read More]
Winshen Liu writes about (re)building and finding home
Meet Winshen Liu, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Grantee working on her poetry collection, Moonful. Moonful is a poetry collection about everyday moments of longing and continued negotiations of home and ... [Read More]
Julia Zarankin examines the in-betweenness of the immigrant experience
Meet Julia Zarankin, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her novel, The Babushka Beauty Pageant. Three generations of strong, opinionated women from Ukraine wind up in Canada where ... [Read More]
Karla Cordero Documents the Impact of Chronic Illness upon the Indigenous/Mexican-American identity
Meet Karla Cordero, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her poetry collection, Chillona / Crybaby. Chillona/Crybaby is a collection of poems documenting the impact of chronic illness ... [Read More]
Sophia Huneycutt Writes a Heroine With Invisible Disability
Meet Sophia Huneycutt, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Grantee working on her novel, The House Built on Alligator Bones. In The House Built on Alligator Bones, a woman pursues her inheritance—a Florida ... [Read More]
Julie Kim Reconciles Ableism through Parenthood
Meet Julie Kim, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE grantee working on her memoir, To Raise Wonderful Hell. In To Raise Wonderful Hell, a mother reconciles her ableist upbringing with a commitment to ... [Read More]
Natasha Driscoll Reclaims the Biracial Narrative
Meet Natasha Driscoll, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her novel, High Yellow. In High Yellow, Tamera, a biracial girl navigates her life; learning how race, colorism and popularity ... [Read More]
Emma Barrow’s Work Centers Strong Cherokee Women
Meet Emma Barrow, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Grantee working on her screenplay, Other Plans. In Other Plans, a Cherokee woman fights to protect her niece from an unlawful adoption by her white ... [Read More]
Anthony Hudson Finds Indigiqueer Representation Through Drag
Meet Anthony Hudson, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Grantee working on his memoir, Looking for Tiger Lily. An Indigiqueer artist grows up seeing redface in Peter Pan and pop culture—until finding true ... [Read More]
Amy Kennedy Explores the Intersection of Industry and Nature
Meet Amy Kennedy, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE grantee working on her nonfiction book, Vanishing Points: Words for Disappearing. Vanishing Points: Words for Disappearing. is a collection of micro-essays ... [Read More]
Kenneth R. Rosen Chronicles the Impacts of Climate Change and the New Cold War
Meet Kenneth R. Rosen, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on his nonfiction book, Land of the North Winds. Land of the North Wind (Simon & Schuster, 2025) takes readers across the ... [Read More]
Emmy Her Many Horses Writes Rez Kid Stories for Rez Kids
Meet Emmy Her Many Horses, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her climate fiction book, The Remembering In The Remembering, Čuŋksi suddenly hears a voice in her head telling of the ... [Read More]
Cora Currier Explores the War on Terror
Meet Cora Currier, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her novel, Some Types of Intelligence. Some Types of Intelligence is a novel about the war on terror — about Afghanistan, ... [Read More]
Abdelrahman ElGendy Grapples With Erasure
Meet Abdelrahman ElGendy, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE grantee working on his memoir, We Write on Walls. We Write on Walls is a memoir that grapples, through the lens of a six-year political ... [Read More]
May Lee-Yang Centers Hmong Women Protagonists
Meet May Lee-Yang, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her short story collection, The Happy Life. The Happy Life is a collection of short stories that center Hmong women protagonists ... [Read More]
Anna Louie Sussman Explores the Hostility of Reproduction Under Capitalism
Meet Anna Louie Sussman, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on her nonfiction book, Inconceivable: Reproduction in an Age of Uncertainty. Inconceivable: Reproduction in an Age of ... [Read More]
Anthony Aycock Investigates Book Banning in the Legal System
Meet Anthony Aycock, a 2024 COURAGE to WRITE Writer of Note working on his nonfiction book, Just Plain Filthy: The Life and Times of Book Banning's Trial of the Century. Just Plain Filthy is the ... [Read More]