Announcement: Fellowship Recipients for The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy

Time to celebrate our recipients!

One of the most profound privileges of running The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy is witnessing the extraordinary stories that emerge when writers with limitations are given the support, community, and framework they need to flourish. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to something that makes my heart sing: our fellowship programs.

Thanks to the breathtaking generosity of our donors—people who understand that every voice matters, especially those that have been historically silenced or overlooked—we've been able to award nineteen fellowships to writers whose projects will undoubtedly expand our literary landscape in the most beautiful ways.

These fellowships represent more than financial support; they're an investment in stories that challenge us, teach us, and remind us of the full spectrum of human experience. Each of our fellowship recipients is navigating chronic illness, disability, caregiving responsibilities, or other life limitations while crafting memoirs and personal nonfiction that will contribute meaningfully to our cultural conversation.

From memoirs exploring mental health and chronic illness to essays examining caregiving, identity, and survival, these projects represent exactly the kind of writing the world needs right now. These are the stories that will help readers feel less alone, that will shift perspectives, and that will add crucial voices to our literary canon.

I want you to meet these incredible humans and learn about the projects they're bringing to life through our Academy. Each one has something vital to teach us, and I have no doubt that their finished works will be the kind of books we'll be talking about for years to come.

So please, settle in with your favorite beverage and prepare to be inspired by the remarkable writers who are proving, once again, that limitation and ambition can coexist beautifully.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Silberstein Fellowships

Thank you to the Silberstein family for the donation of seven fellowships this cohort.

Jay Noel is a queer, gender-fluid witch living in the woods on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia, Canada. They were a journalist for half a decade but took a buyout shortly after being diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder. That year nearly broke them, but witchcraft was an anchor and has been since. The focus of Jay's memoir is the crossroads of magic and the misfiring mind. It is an examination of the connections between mental illness and spirituality, and how those connections shape a person.

Christina Tran makes tender, autobio comics and essays that pull us toward a more compassionate world. She has been making webcomics since 2014 and self-publishing zines since 2015. Her artmaking practice draws on roots of design, teaching, and community weaving amongst renegade art spaces. Christina is working on a memoir-in-essays tracing her learning journey about the nervous system through the lenses of: trauma, race, and autism. Each lens offers a different framing for how to fix, manage, ignore, or be in caring relationship with one's own sensitivities and neurobiology. She wants to share some of the neuroscience alongside the unhelpful detours and helpful somatic practices that have paved the way towards self-acceptance. Follow and support her work online at patreon.com/sodelightful.

My name is Toniann Astuto. I live outside of New York City and am an energy healer, holistic life coach, artist and writer. I mostly write poetry and non-fiction. My current project is called Reclaiming Your Inner Goddess (I am still working on a good tag line!) It is part memoir and part self-help book; it outlines my own spiritual journey and the struggles that I went through to redefine myself in middle age. The book asks women, who are you underneath all the stories (self-imposed or not) and the societal roles you have been forced to take on? What is the “you” that exists deep down really like? I want women to feel empowered to rediscover themselves and reinvent themselves at any age and under any circumstance

Lauren Pikó is a writer, editor, and researcher working on unceded Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia. Lauren is working on an essay collection exploring fatigue as a form of bodily orientation: a precondition for living that shapes how we encounter time, energy, and value. The collection will explore relationships between disability, time, productivity, energy and political engagement.

Sara El-Sayeh is an Egyptian writer, (single) mother and facilitator roaming the fault lines of Cairo. Post-revolution and mid-collapse, her work explores what it means to belong, and at times completely refusing to, in a place that demands that she becomes convenient.

She maps the geographies of single motherhood: the labyrinth of repair and care as resistance. Her work helps (her) navigate the freeze of capitalism while slowly weaving communities of care tof nourish us through times of collapse.

Sara's memoir project is about exactly that: the poetics of surviving post-colonial notions of progress while attempting to raise fully human children as a single mother. Interlacing the memoir are threads of navigating life in a mega-city, sufism under modernity and mothering both herself and her children while choosing to still believe in love, belonging, care and the power of the imagination.

Jen Bryant’s writing has appeared in The Sun, Ms., BUST, Anodyne Mag, Matter News, and elsewhere. She is an editor at MUTHA Magazine and a creative nonfiction reader for Mud Season Review. Originally from the South, she currently lives in the Midwest, where she manages grants for a small but mighty nonprofit. Jen is currently working on her first book, a nonfiction essay collection that examines her experiences with teen pregnancy and motherhood against a larger cultural context.

Lucas Kade (he/they) is a multi-disciplinary artist, professional performer, and eclectic witch newly based out of Baltimore, MD. His work is influenced by and expressive of his lived experience and identity as a non-binary, genderfluid, transgender man. Lucas' work and creative instruction has been featured at numerous events and venues across the eastern United States – including Atlanta Fringe Festival, PlayThink, and Mystic South, among others. Lucas will be dedicating his time in the Unexpected Shape Academy to developing his memoir, All My Angels Are Trans -- a series of vignettes from his transition and experiences loving other trans people."

Helen Gordon Fellowships

Helen Gordon was a writer of great ambition; these two fellowships are awarded in her name.

Kristína Janačková (she/her) is a writer and disability justice activist born in Slovakia. Kristína studies and works at the University of Tuebingen in Germany. Her research focuses on mad and disability studies. She writes poetry and creative nonfiction in both Slovak and German. As a participant in The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy, she is developing a collection of essays exploring the cultural, political, and social meanings of schizophrenia. Each essay takes a concept from the history of science or a colloquial term related to “madness” as a departure point, unfolding it into a personal narrative that weaves together Kristína’s lived experience and critical analysis.

NOTE: We have selected a second Helen Gordon Fellowship recipient who will be included in the next cohort.

Disability Visibility Fellowships

The Disability Visibility Fellowships (of which there are ten) are donated by the generous and brilliant MacArthur Award winner Alice Wong.

Fran Mara (she/her) is an aspiring writer, home chef, nature and music lover and 1st generation immigrant based in Ontario, Canada. Although she is not a formally trained writer, she is currently in the early stages of a memoir that she hopes would one day share her story of healing, courage and resilience from trauma, autoimmune diseases, mental and physical limitations. She feels that more voices need to be heard regarding navigating the headwinds of limited resources and support, the shortfalls of toxic family systems and limiting cultural views of mental health, lessons she learned and rebuilding a life worth living with the kindness of people along the way. Her recent favourite reads are What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo and Year of the Tiger by Alice Wong. She is a grateful recipient of the scholarship at the Unexpected Writers Academy and profoundly thankful to her generous and inspiring sponsors Alice Wong and Esmé Weijun Wang.

Julia Lee Barclay-Morton, PhD lives in NYC where she is writing From Dancing Seal to Selkie: notes on very-late diagnosed autism, ableism and awe a hybrid critical/researched memoir about the unexpected yet profound liberation of being diagnosed autistic at 57 and reframing my life as a consequence; this includes a parallel timeline of the misconceptions, mistreatments, and misdiagnoses of Autistics during my lifetime, through to the current movement led by Autistic adultswho are working to change how we are perceived: from scary defect to cherished diversity. Julia is an award-winning writer/director, whose writing has been produced and published internationally; her first book, a hybrid collection, THE MORTALITY SHOT published by Liquid Cat Books; recent publications in Autism in Adulthood, Oldster, Prairie Schooner, [PANK], Heavy Feather Review. She founded Apocryphal Theatre when in London, which work was the basis of her practice-as-research PhD from Northampton; 20 years of her stage texts were streamed, commissioned by Radio Art Zone in 2022. More at TheUnadaptedOnes.com.

Stephanie McCall is a full-time freelance writer from Western North Carolina. She is currently working on a memoir about using the gift of story to understand herself and her limitations, deepen her relationship with Christ, and encourage other women. She is a voracious reader, a thespian, and a staunch member of Team Feline who considers her cat her personal muse. She has an eight-year-old niece and six-year-old nephew whom she adores, and with whom she enjoys sharing her love of literature, particularly Harry Potter and Narnia.

Christina Lee is a disabled and chronically ill Korean writer, rester, fiber arts hobbyist, researcher, nervous system, tangerine-eating machine. She is hibernating on Lenape land (Brooklyn) with her partner and senior dog. During this session of the Academy, she will be writing about abolition and disability justice to examine care-based relationships and friendships in the face of her complex chronic illness diagnoses. Her background in public health research lends understanding to how both the medical industrial complex and popular narratives of illness compound harm against myalgic encephalomyelitis patients and other chronic illness patients through capitalistic notions of ‘recovery.’ Furthermore, she hopes to honor the relationships that have sustained her through illness as a life-changing event, and explore how we can learn to be better community members. Caring about each other is how we will continue to survive in an increasingly racist, fascist, and ableist world. You can find her on Substack at lettersfromchristina.substack.com, where she writes her eldest daughter musings, or on Instagram @thepainquotidien.

Sonaksha is a South Asian queer and disabled illustrator, graphic recorder and comic artist. They use art to participate in buildinG and social justice movements. Their art has supported the work of organisations including Instagram, Adobe, Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism and Mama Cash; and been featured in The Washington Post, The Nib and BuzzFeed. At The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy, Sonaksha is dreaming and writing about care, sapphic joy, and the power of radical hope in the aftermath of violence, for a series of memoir comics. My instagram is: @sonaksha

Raia Small is working on multiple memoir essays about unconscious desires/fears, love, sexuality, illness, and violence.

Jade T. Perry, M.Ed. (she/they) is a BlackQueerDisabled femme, writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, and mystic. Overall, the mission of her work is to create transformative spaces, art, and experiences that affirm the wisdom, needs, and thriving of Disabled, chronically ill, Black, Brown, and LGBTQIA+ communities. JTP is the Co-Founder of the Chicago Hoodoo Society & The Mystic Soul Project and she is a Board Member of Parallel Play, a COVID-conscious community arts and care organization. Her writing appears in multiple anthologies and platforms, exploring themes of spiritual care, disability justice, sexuality / sensuality, and political education. JTP's regular offerings include immersive workshops, 1-on-1 & group divination, and spiritual development programs, such as The Cecilia Weston Spiritual Academy. She is currently working on "The Churchy Mystic: Essays & Stories from the Crossroads of Black Spirituality." (Perhaps the biggest myth about what it means to be a churchy mystic is that churchy equals Christian). JTP is the great great Granddaughter of a ConjureWoman and an emancipated Baptist Preacher. This work explores what it might take, what it has taken, to both heal and divest from colonial Christianity while honoring the spiritual Knowing, mysticism, and spiritual activism of Black folks from the Great Migration and beyond.

Corin Purifoy (she/they) is a fiber artist and designer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. As a person on the "gifted kid to college dropout" pipeline, she's learned and is still learning to work around her autism, ADHD and chronic pain. She believes with her whole heart that creating is why we were created, and that any medium is worthy of creation, whether a novel, a painting, or a small dance performed while cooking dinner. She plans to write a hybrid book of crochet patterns and autobiographical essays about how the act of crafting and creation has saved her life again and again - the trials she's gone through in life, and how they're nothing compared to using her hands to bring beautiful things into the world.

Da Young Lisa Park is working on a darkly funny and deeply intimate memoir about growing up Korean-American in a chaotic household, navigating mental illness, addiction, heartbreak, and the devastating loss of her brother, A Regrettably Fun Time is a layered portrait of family, grief, and the long, messy path to selfhood.

Rebecca Chamaa is a freelance writer with lived experience of chronic paranoid schizophrenia. She has bylines in HuffPost, Glamour, Teen Vogue and many other outlets. Her other jobs and interests are certified peer support specialist, public speaker, and she has a certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. Her project for this fellowship is a memoir of flash pieces of CNF. Her focus in telling these stories is to write lyrically about many things that reach beyond the diagnosis of a severe mental illness.

Finally…

As we celebrate these nineteen remarkable fellowship recipients, we're already looking ahead to the stories yet to be told. Our next cohort of The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy will begin in September, and applications will open this August for writers ready to transform their experiences into powerful personal nonfiction.

We're actively seeking additional fellowship opportunities for our September cohort because we believe deeply that financial barriers should never silence important voices. The stories of writers living with limitations are not luxury narratives—they're essential perspectives that our literary landscape desperately needs. Every fellowship we're able to offer represents another chance for a writer to complete the project that might otherwise remain unfinished, another opportunity for a story to reach readers who need to hear it.

If you're moved by the work these writers are doing and would like to consider providing fellowship support for future cohorts, please reach out to us at info@esmewang.com. Whether you're an individual, foundation, or organization that values the power of authentic storytelling, we'd love to explore how we might work together to ensure that no writer's voice goes unheard simply because they're living with limitations.

After all, the most transformative stories often come from those who've learned to create not despite their circumstances, but because of the unique wisdom those circumstances have provided. We can't wait to see what extraordinary work emerges from our September cohort, and we hope you'll be part of making those stories possible.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​