THE 2025 KWELI EMERGING WRITER FELLOWS

Kweli has been mentoring underrepresented writers since December 2009. Designed to help emerging Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) writers hone their craft, this fellowship provides 11 months of editorial support from Kweli editors along with the following benefits:

-a $2,000 stipend,

-free enrollment in our annual International Literary Festival and Color of Children’s Literature Conference,

-publication in Kweli Journal,

-all-expense paid writing retreat,

-admission-free enrollment in three professionally led writing workshops on literary fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry, and

-participation in four public readings

Former Kweli Fellow Delia Selina Taylor wrote about her fellowship experience. “Never has my work been taken so seriously or held with such keen attention and care. For the first time in a long time, my work as a woman of color, and all my intersectionalities, was not only centered, but celebrated, and for that, I am forever grateful to my amazing and talented cohort, the fantastic workshop and masterclass leaders, and the inimitable and gracious Laura Pegram, who created this beautiful community.”

HALIMA Z. ADAMS is an Ohio-born, Brooklyn-based fiction writer & migrant justice worker. Halima’s writing explores displacement, memory & legacies of forced migration. She is working on a novel.

LISA ARRASTIA is a Black & Cuban writer & educator born & raised in West Harlem. Her current writing project explores the intersections of memory, race, geography.

JULIA BOTERO is a former audio producer for NYT. Her memoir highlights emotional toll caring for a loved one suffering from mental illness can take on an immigrant family.

ESKEDAR GIRMASH is a Black Queer writer, healer, & mutual aid organizer originally from Ethiopia, now based in Brooklyn, NY. She is weaving personal essay, lyrical prose, poetry into a book on grief.

ANDREA MADU is a Nigerian American writer originally from DMV area. Her writing centers black women, generational trauma & cross-cultural love. She is currently working on a short story collection.

GRACE NASR is an Arab American writer from Michigan, currently residing in New York. Her writing explores intersections of identity & diaspora guilt.

EMILY DEL CARMEN RAMIREZ is a queer Dominican American writer born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her work explores Dominican folklore & identity. She is currently working on a collection of short stories.

SARA SAMUEL is an Indian American writer & software engineer from NYC. She writes literary and speculative short fiction that explores themes of intergenerational relationships, cultural dynamics, and the societal impacts of climate change.

TABISH TALIB is a Pakistani American journalist & documentary filmmaker. His fiction focuses on anti-colonial historical narratives & contemporary immigrant family dynamics. He lives in Harlem with his wife & growing collection of old maps. He is currently working on a novel.

IRENE VÁZQUEZ is a queer Black Mexican American poet, translator, & journalist who writes at the intersection of Black cultural work, placemaking & the environment. They are currently at work on a memoir-in-essays about Black and queer futurity on the Gulf Coast under climate change.