RISE: An Evening with the Ashley Bryan Fellows
Join MWPA for RISE: an Evening with The Ashley Bryan Fellows with Cocktail Mary in the penthouse above Oun Lido’s! RISE celebrates the work of diverse literary voices upholding the legacy of beloved, late Maine artist Ashley Bryan. The writers who will be sharing their work, all selected for distinction through MWPA’s Ashley Bryan Fellowship Program, include Sophia Kapita, Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz, Jenna Dela Cruz Vendil, Dania Bowie, Annelise Parham, Maya Williams, and Johan Alexander. All proceeds from the evening will be donated to ILAP Maine. Suggested donation is $5.
Sophia Kapita is a writer and political science student based in Portland, Maine. A Michael Macklin Fellow at The Telling Room and a Maine NEW Leadership alum, her work explores identity, displacement, and the challenges and resilience of Black womanhood. She is currently pursuing her Associate’s degree at Southern Maine Community College and developing a collection of poems about migration and belonging.
Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz was born in Monterey, Mexico, grew up in Colorado, and completed her undergraduate and graduate studies in California, Massachusetts, and Texas. Her first "real" job was with the United States Foreign Service, and her first "overseas" assignment in Mexico City. The experience was transformative, and is the inspiration for the literary novel she hopes to complete as an Ashley Bryan Fellow. Clarisa moved to Maine in 2009 to work at Bates College. Her research examines the impact of emigration on the politics of communities that are "left behind." She teaches Latin American politics, Latino politics, and international migration and is also founding a member of the College's Latin American and Latinx Studies Program. Clarisa has received recognition for her teaching and mentoring, including a national award for mentoring Latino undergraduates. She's been a writer since she was a kid, but it's only in the past five years that she's convinced herself that some stories about politics and immigration are better told through fiction than through scholarly work.
Jenna Dela Cruz Vendil is an award-winning organizer, activist, and engagement strategist who works to build inclusive systems through community engagement. Jenna believes in the power of storytelling to shape our social fabric, creating portals to new dimensions that liberate memory and illuminate who we are becoming.
Following an 18 year hiatus and a career shift, Jenna found their way back into creative practice. Jenna’s writing practice explores grief, parenting, disability, spiritual practice, and their family’s experience of colonization and diaspora from the Philippines.
Dania Bowie (she/they) is a community and resource organizer, working in social movements on Wabanaki land. She is a 2023 Ashely Bryan Fellow, often writing poetry and short stories. When she is not creating, you can find her on the water, on a mountain, playing Dungeons & Dragons, or at home being terrorized by her cat.
Annelise Parham is a daughter, sister, spouse, mother, and writer of African-American, German, and Irish descent. She writes as she lives, at the intersection of race, class, and culture; at the overlap of poetry and prose, fiction and memoir, remembered song lyrics and forgotten corporate memos. Annelise holds a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology from NYU and a master’s degree in business from MIT Sloan. She shifted to full-time writing in 2023 after leaving a decade-long career in corporate biotech. Annelise is a student of The Writers Studio and the 2025-26 GrubStreet’s Memoir Incubator program. In 2025 Annelise received the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance Ilgenfritz and Christina Baker Kline Scholarships. After a lifetime spent searching for a place that feels like home, Annelise has happily settled in Maine’s Midcoast with her husband, two kids, and the family Collie.
Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who served as Portland, Maine's poet laureate for a 2021-2024 term. Maya has four published poetry collections. Maya has also written prose for Talk Death, The Rumpus, The Daily Beast, LGBTQ Nation, Black Girl Nerds, and more. Follow more of eir work at mayawilliamspoet.com
Johan Alexander's written work has received support from Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, Periplus Collective, StoryStudio Chicago, and Anaphora Arts Writing Residencies, and he was an inaugural Maine Lit Fest Fellow in 2022. His most recent work appears in print in The Telling Room’s 20th Anniversary Anthology, and online at The Other Maine, and are forthcoming in ON PAPER Literary Art Zine and LatineLit Fall 2026. Born in Medellín, Colombia, Johan Alexander currently lives in Portland, Maine.
