We are thrilled to announce the premiere of our newest Virtual AWP conversation: “Writer to Writer Conversations and Readings with Mentor Kristen Witucki,” featuring mentees Sadia Kalam, Briana Maley, and Sarah Schiff! Tune in for a series of short readings and a discussion centering on the intersection of parenthood and writing.

The premiere of this Virtual AWP event will also include a live Q&A on YouTube on Thursday, May 30, 2024, at 6:00 p.m. ET. Register online to receive a reminder and a direct link to this event, as well as updates on future events. Registration is free, and you do not have to be an AWP member to sign up. However, to participate in the live Q&A, you must be signed in on YouTube.

Interested in the Writer to Writer Program but don’t know where to start? Visit our Writer to Writer Mentorship Program page to learn more.

Mentor Bio

Kristen Witucki is the author of two fiction books, Outside Myself and The Transcriber, and several nonfiction articles about motherhood as a blind parent. She works as a content creator and accessibility specialist for Tamman Inc. and teaches students who are blind or have low vision. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children, ages thirteen, eight, and five.

Mentee Bios

Sadia is a writer based out of the United States. She writes a weekly essay on her Substack Ugly Shoes, Paper Planes. Currently in the ugly-shoe stage where she wears only sensible shoes, Sadia writes about spirituality and faith as she explores how ancient Sufi texts apply to modern living. As she changes diapers and cleans vomit, she dreams of flying more paper planes one day and finishing her YA manuscript. Please find her work at UglyShoesPaperPlanes.Substack.com.

Briana Maley’s stories have been published in Lilith Magazine, Fiction Southeast, New Flash Fiction Review, Little Patuxent Review, Fictive Dream, and elsewhere. She received Lilith’s 2019 fiction prize, was runner-up in the 2020 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival fiction contest, and received an honorable mention in the 2021 Bethesda Magazine contest. Her stories have been nominated for Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction. She lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, where she is working on her first novel.

Sarah Schiff earned her PhD in American literature from Emory University but is a fugitive from higher education. She now writes fiction and teaches high school English in Atlanta. Her short stories have appeared in or are forthcoming from Pembroke Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, Cleaver, and Monkeybicycle, among others, and her nonfiction can be found in such publications as Biography and Arizona Quarterly. She’s been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize (by J Journal and jmww), was a finalist for the TulipTree Review’s Wild Women Story Contest, and is a 2024 Jack Hazard fellow. Wouldn’t you know it: She’s currently at work on a novel.