2026 Maine Lit Fest Fellows
Every Maine Lit Fest year, MWPA selects and pays up to 5 Lit Fest Fellows to play a key role in Lit Fest planning, outreach, and production. Lit Fest Fellows are emerging writers who are active leaders within their communities. Fellows work with us to design and carry out specific Lit Fest activities and projects.
The 2026 Maine Lit Fest Fellows include: poet and editor Dija Ali, editor and Poet Laureate of Belfast Audrey Gidman, science and nature writer Kea Krause, author, essayist, poet, and bookseller Hannah Matthews, and award-winning organizer, activist, and engagement strategist Jenna Dela Cruz Vendil.
Dija Ali (she/her) is a queer poet currently going for a psychology degree at Central Maine. She started writing in middle school after seeing Sarah Kay’s Ted Talk “If I should have a daughter…”. Dija is also a 2026 Anthology Editor at Trans Poetics Archive.
Audrey Gidman is the author of two chapbooks, griefnotes (Porkbelly Press, 2026) and body psalms (Slate Roof Press, 2023), winner of the Elyse Wolf Prize. She serves as guest editor for Frontier Poetry, chapbook editor for Newfound, and Poet Laureate of Belfast, Maine.
Kea Krause is a science and nature writer based in Maine. Her work has appeared in a variety of media outlets including The Atlantic, National Geographic, Sierra Magazine, and Wired, has been anthologized in Best American Science and Nature Writing and Best American Travel Writing, and has been a finalist for a National Nonprofit News Award. In addition to writing and editing, she teaches workshops and is at work on her first book-length project. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in Maine with her family. You can find her at the beach or at keakrause.com.
Hannah Matthews (she/her) is an author, essayist, poet, and bookseller/indie bookstore marketing coordinator. Her debut book, You or Someone You Love (Atria Books, 2023), was a finalist for the New England Book Award, a Kirkus-starred title, and was named the American Library Association's RISE Feminist book of the year. Her second book, Sweet-Blooded, is forthcoming from Beacon Press in 2027. Her writing has appeared in TIME Magazine, The Guardian, Esquire, Vogue, Literary Hub, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, ELLE, Jezebel, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, and more publications. She lives in Maine with her family.
Jenna Dela Cruz Vendil is an award-winning organizer, activist, and engagement strategist who works to build inclusive systems through social action, policy, and electoral engagement. For nearly 15 years, Jenna supported youth and student engagement within political and social movements in Maine, ranging from educational equity for BIPOC youth in Portland, to reproductive health, tax fairness and worker justice. In 2009, Jenna became the first Asian American woman elected in Portland, serving on the School Board for nearly a decade to advance educational equity, strengthen student voice, and increase diverse community engagement. Jenna currently works for Bates College, facilitating experiential opportunities for students to step into their power, on their journey for social change. Jenna started writing stories as a child, as a means for conveying dreams of different realities. In high school and college, writing became the space to explore experiences from childhood - homelessness, Catholicism, Filipino culture, and fractures in family, as a way to interrogate the narrative and myth of the “American dream.” It became a refuge amidst historical conflict, war, and trauma from a childhood that seems better left forgotten. After an 18-year hiatus, Jenna was called back to writing in 2024, following the birth of her second child and the deaths of two formative mentors. She is writing to liberate memory, disrupt cultural norms, and to pay homage to the tricksters. It is now the place of connection for grief, joy, the non sequiturs, a portal to the multiverse of histories and possibilities for transformation and liberation.
2024 Maine Lit Fest Fellows
The 2024 Maine Lit Fest Fellows include: prose writer and editor, Michael Colbert, 2022 Maine Magazine Mainer of the Year and 2022 Crime Flash Competition winner, Mo Drammeh, Tin House Scholar and Ashley Bryan Fellow, Liz Iverson, Afghan-American artist and writer, Leila Christine Nadir, and 7th Portland, Maine Poet Laureate, and winner of Maine Humanities Council Constance Carlson Public Humanities Prize, Maya Williams. A full bio for each Lit Fest Fellow appears below.
Michael Colbert is a gay writer and editor based in Portland, where he’s at work on a novel. He holds an MFA from UNC Wilmington, where he taught creative writing and was a 2021 Brauer Fellow, and attended the Tin House Summer Workshop. He’s the founding editor of The Rejoinder and has served as a reader for Ecotone and Story, and as an editor and columnist for No Contact. His writing appears in One Story, Esquire, NYLON, Down East, Decor Maine, and the Cincinnati Review, among others.
Mo Drammeh is a freshman at the University of Maine and a member of the Honors College. He was among Maine Magazine's Mainers of The Year in 2022 for his writing, was the winner of the 2022 Crime Flash Competition, and is a 2023 Macklin Fellow. Mo grew up in Bangor, Maine, and has lived there all his life.
Liz Iversen was born in the Philippines and grew up in South Dakota. A Tin House Scholar, Ashley Bryan Fellow, and Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere. She lives in South Portland with her husband and children, where she is at work on a novel. You can find her online at Liziversen.com.
Leila Christine Nadir is an Afghan-American artist and writer whose work appears in literary and scholarly journals, in museums and galleries, and in forests, classrooms, and kitchens. Her writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Khôra, Black Warrior Review, North American Review, ASAP, and Aster(ix), and has been supported by awards and fellowships from MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Bread Loaf, Tin House, the de Groot Foundation, and Aspen Words. More info: https://leilanadir.xyz/. Instagram: @afghan_vegan.
Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a religious Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who was selected as Portland, ME's seventh poet laureate for a July 2021 to July 2024 term. Maya received a MFA in Creative Writing with a Focus in Poetry from Randolph College in June 2022. Eir debut poetry collection Judas & Suicide (Game Over Books, 2023) was selected as a finalist for the New England Book Award. They also have a second poetry collection, Refused a Second Date (Harbor Editions, 2023). Maya was selected as one of The Advocate's Champions of Pride in 2022 and one of Maine Humanities Council's recipients of the Constance Carlson Public Humanities Prize in 2024. Follow her at mayawilliamspoet.com
2022 Maine Lit Fest Fellows
The 2022 Maine Lit Fest Fellows included (below, clockwise from left to right) ESOL instructor, Maine Humanities Council facilitator, and writer Virginie Akimana; musician, writer, tutor, and translator Johan Alexander Fenney, writer, reader, and communications manager at The Telling Room Rylan Hynes; Chinese, Irish, and Canadian writer and business owner Coco McCracken; and Maliseet writer, visual artist, and editor Mihku Paul. A full bio for each Lit Fest Fellow appears below.
2022 Maine Lit Fest Fellows
Virginie Akimana is from Rwanda. She is currently an ESOL Instructor at Portland Adult Education (PAE) and a Facilitator and Speaker at Maine Humanities Council (MHC). Virginie holds a Bachelors’ degree in English-Literature with Education, a MBA-IB (International Business), a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, and an Executive Postgraduate Diploma in International Trade Policy and Trade Law. She taught communication and business-related courses at the University of Rwanda and served as Acting Manager of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network in the Great Lakes region. Virginie is currently working on a novel entitled KAMEGEYO: The Bush Girl, which depicts the life of a village girl who struggles to take her life to another level.
Johan Alexander Fenney is a musician, translator, and tutor based in Portland, Maine. The recipient of an inaugural Ashley Bryan Fellowship from MWPA in 2021, Alex was recently awarded a spot in the 2022 Periplus Collective for Emerging Writers. An avid volunteer and literacy advocate (and ex-indie bookstore employee), Alex is thrilled to be part of Maine Lit Fest and looks forward to helping bridge gaps and connect communities through the power of books and words.
Rylan Hynes grew up in South Portland and studied creative writing, visual art, and theatre at College of the Atlantic as an undergraduate. Rylan is currently the Communications Manager at The Telling Room in Portland, Maine, and has worked with independent bookstores and literary nonprofits across the country, including Maine's own Nonesuch Books and award-winning poetry press Alice James Books. In 2020, the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance and Maine Community Foundation awarded Rylan with a Martin Dibner Fellowship to attend the Harvest Writers Retreat. When they aren't busy writing short stories, novels, and essays, Rylan enjoys spending time with their spouse and their hedgehog.
Coco McCracken is a Chinese, Irish, and Canadian writer based in Portland, Maine, where she also runs a marketing business. She is the recipient of a 2021 Ashley Bryan Fellowship with the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and her chapbook, The Rabbit, was selected by author Melissa Febos for the Maine Chapbook series, and will be published in fall 2022. Coco is a guest columnist for Amjambo Africa and the co-creator of a forthcoming journal spotlighting Asian Americans living in Maine. If she isn’t behind her camera, Coco is working on her first book, playing in the woods with her daughter Ryan June, and dreaming big with her husband Ian.
Mihku Paul is a Maliseet writer and visual artist who lives and works in Portland. She is a 2010 graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Her poetry can be found in multiple publications and has been translated internationally to French and Spanish. Her first book, 20th Century PowWow Playland, was published in 2012 by Bowman Books. She is the Executive Editor of Dawnland Voices 2.0 (Dawnland Voices.org). Recent publications include Wait: Poems from the Pandemic and Enough! Poems of Resistance and Protest. Upcoming work will be featured in Atlantic Vernacular (Craft New Brunswick exhibition).
Colby Lit Fest Fellows
Annabelle Williams grew up in Cumberland, Maine. She is currently studying Creative Writing and Philosophy at Colby College. With a lifelong interest in storytelling through music and dance, Annabelle balances her indoor interests with an affinity for hiking and anything that lives outside. While the scope of her literary presence is limited to a high school job in a bookstore, she is excited about all of the writers she gets to learn from through Maine Lit Fest.
Julie You is majoring in Creative Writing and Economics at Colby College, and enjoys playing piano as a hobby. A love of Jane Austen's novels first introduced her to the world of English literature and writing, and since then she has fallen in love with the beauty of words and language. Julie is excited about the Maine Literary Festival and hopes to see you at the events.