Season 16 Mentees
AWP celebrates the twelve writers selected to participate in the Season 16 session of the Writer to Writer Mentorship Program. We received hundreds of applications for this session. Mentors were each given several strong applications to choose from and selected their own mentees.
Alison Heron Hruby
Poetry
Alison Heron Hruby is an associate professor of English Education at Morehead State University in Kentucky, where she specializes in qualitative research on adolescent literacy and the teaching of writing. In recent years, she has returned to her love of writing poetry and fiction, which began in childhood. Her creative writing focuses on the weirdnesses of midlife.
Alison Heron Hruby is working with Amorak Huey.
Andrea Deeken
Poetry
Andrea Deeken’s writing has appeared in various journals including Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Valley Voices, and her awards include an Honorable Mention in the 2019 Spoon River Poetry Review Editors’ Prize Contest; second place in the 2020 Blue Mountain Review LGBTQ Chapbook Contest; and first place in the 2021 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest with her debut chapbook, Mother Kingdom, published in March 2022. Born in rural Missouri, she lives in Portland, Oregon with her wife and daughter, where she has worked for the public library system for fifteen years.
Andrea Deeken is working with Alexa Doran.
Weijia Pan
Poetry
Weijia Pan is a poet and translator from Shanghai, China. Prior to entering the MFA program at the University of Houston, he studied comparative literature at UCLA and worked as an education consultant for high school students in China. He writes in both English and Chinese.
Weijia Pan is working with Neil Aitken.
Katey Linskey
Poetry
Katey Linskey is a writer with poetry out and forthcoming in The West Review, Rise Up Review, and elsewhere. She draws from her experiences growing up in Boston and later living in India and Guatemala. She spent six years working in public health which continues to inform her work as a writer.
Katey Linskey is working with J. Kates.
Dawn Angelicca Barcelona
Poetry
Dawn Angelicca Barcelona (she/her) is a Filipina American poet based in San Francisco, originally from New Jersey. She is an alumna of the U.S. Department of State Fulbright Program to South Korea and received a San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in Poetry (2022). She loves to dance, talk about mental health, and travel via public transportation.
Dawn Angelicca Barcelona is working with Shikha Malaviya.
Heather Stivison
Creative Nonfiction
Heather Stivison is an award-winning visual artist whose work has been widely exhibited in museums, universities, and galleries across the United States and internationally as far as South Korea. She is a former museum director, former president of both the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, and the New Jersey Association of Museums. Today, she lives and works in Massachusetts, where she is the president of South Coast Artists, Inc.
Heather Stivison is working with Dawn Raffel.
Lauren Tanabe
Creative Nonfiction
Lauren Tanabe is a NYC transplant living and writing in Detroit. She has a PhD in Pharmacology & Molecular Signaling from Columbia University. Her essays and reported work on the darker side of motherhood and mental health can be found in the Washington Post, Elemental, Insider, MUTHA Magazine, and elsewhere.
Lauren Tanabe is working with Emily Maloney.
Shze-Hui Tjoa
Creative Nonfiction
Shze-Hui Tjoa is a creative nonfiction writer originally from Singapore, now living in the UK. Her work has been listed as notable in The Best American Essays 2021, and has been published in Colorado Review, Southeast Review, So To Speak, and elsewhere. She has received support from Disquiet International and the Tin House Summer Workshop, and can be found documenting her creative journey (while providing resources for other writers) at www.tjoashzehui.com
Shze-Hui Tjoa is working with Lily Hoang.
Chibuike Ogbonnaya
Fiction
Chibuike Ogbonnaya obtained a combined honors in English and Literary Studies and History and International Studies from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Their collection of thematically linked short stories featuring women, feminine gay men, transgender and gender queer people, was a finalist for the Iron Horse Literary Review First Book Prize. Chibuike's work has appeared in or forthcoming in Green Mountains Review, Stellium, Akuko Magazine, Black Femme Co, The Forge Literary Magazine, and elsewhere.
Chibuike Ogbonnaya is working with Rochelle Spencer.
Briana Maley
Fiction
Briana Maley’s short stories have been published in Fiction Southeast, Lilith Magazine, Little Patuxent Review, New Flash Fiction Review, and elsewhere. She received Lilith’s 2019 fiction prize and was runner-up in the 2020 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival fiction contest. She lives in Maryland, where she is working on her first novel.
Briana Maley is working with Kristen Witucki.
Candice C. Cusic
Fiction
Candice C. Cusic Candice C. Cusic is an internationally award-winning photographer based in Chicago. She specializes in Moment-Driven Photography for luxury wedding, family, and pet photographic experiences. An avid reader since childhood, Candice's queer YA novel is her first.
Candice C. Cusic is working with Allison Whittenberg.
Reed Kuehn
Fiction
Reed Kuehn is a physician, combat veteran, and writer who has called Wisconsin, Washington DC, North Carolina, and Colorado home, but currently lives and writes in Rhode Island. He is a reader for The Masters Review and his short fiction has appeared with The First Line, So It Goes, and Calliope. He is currently working on hist first novel, Maplefruit.
Reed Kuehn is working with Mark Pleiss.
