A Reading with The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil 2026 Emerging Writer Fellows

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Thursday, 7:00 pm EDT May 21, 2026

The Center for Fiction
& Livestreamed

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In-person attendees will be admitted on a first-come, first-seated basis. Registration does not guarantee entry. All registrants will receive a link to livestream the event.

Join us as The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil 2026 Emerging Writer Fellows come together to share their published writing and works in progress at their first reading together as a cohort. This year’s fellows are Jamier Boatman-Harrell, Inyene Ekanem, Ji Hyun Joo, Lucas Ege Mautner, Skyler Melnick, Allen L. Melton Jr., Eric Sacks, Darina Sikmashvili, and Ayten Tartici.

The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowships annually provide nine early-career, New York City-based writers with financial support; professional and creative development; monthly dinners with eminent editors, agents, and authors; access to The Center’s Writers Studio; public readings in our performance space; and ongoing support in establishing their literary careers.

The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowship is supported in part by Amazon Literary Partnership, Stuart S. Applebaum Giving Foundation, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Jerome Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Hawthornden Foundation, the Karpfinger Agency, Macmillan, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, Penguin Random House, PublishersMarketplace.com, and contributors to The Center for Fiction.

Featuring

Jamier Boatman-Harrell

Jamier Boatman-Harrell

Jamier Boatman-Harrell is a Brooklyn-based creative director and writer, exercising his STEM background as an unlikely creative tool. Like engineering problems, he believes there isn’t one “right” human experience. Thus, his practice aims to identify dismissed or overlooked perspectives and capture stories navigating the cultural and interpersonal responsibilities that sustain human connection.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross
Inyene Ekanem

Inyene Ekanem

Inyene Ekanem is a fiction writer and a faith development practitioner. Her works sit at the intersection of the Christian faith and the complexities of the human condition, exploring themes of social issues, faith, family dynamics, regressive customs, social malaise, spiritual abuse, and political corruption. She is a 2026 The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow, a finalist for the 2026 Epiphany Fresh Voice Fellowship, and an editor’s selection for the 2024 Masters Review Novel Excerpt.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross
Ji Hyun Joo

Ji Hyun Joo

Ji Hyun Joo is a writer raised in California and South Korea, currently based in Queens. She completed her MFA in Fiction at Columbia University, where she is a recipient of the 2020 Felipe P. De Alba Fellowship and a nominee for the Henfield Prize. Her fiction has been published in the Drift, VQR, New England Review, West Branch, and elsewhere.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross
Lucas Ege Mautner

Lucas Ege Mautner

Lucas Ege Mautner is a Brooklyn-based writer with a BA from Hunter College and an MFA from The New School. His fiction explores queerness, labor politics, and sexuality through historical narratives. He is currently working on a novel set in 1910 about a trans man who flees an arranged marriage to live a hobo’s life on the rails, confronting questions of identity, survival, and freedom in early 20th-century America.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross
Skyler Melnick

Skyler Melnick

Skyler Melnick has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. She writes about ghost girls, guillotines, and women falling from the sky. Her work appears in Wigleaf, Fairy Tale Review, Fractured Lit, and elsewhere, with support from Yaddo, Vermont Studio Center, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross
Allen L. Melton Jr.

Allen L. Melton Jr.

Allen L. Melton Jr. is a black queer Southerner and storyteller on the page, stage, and microphone. His stories blend notes of surrealist fantasy, escapism, horror, and revenge. He is cozily based in Brooklyn, NY.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross
Eric Sacks

Eric Sacks

Eric Sacks is a writer, filmmaker, and educator from New York City and the South Shore of Long Island. He holds a BS in Applied Physics from Columbia University and an MFA in fiction from the University of Texas at Austin. He is at work on his first novel.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross
Darina Sikmashvili

Darina Sikmashvili

Darina (Dasha) Sikmashvili was born in Lubny, Ukraine, and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where she moved at age eight. Her writing has been generously supported by the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Elizabeth George Foundation, among others. Sikmashvili completed her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers Program. She’s worked in film and TV for over a decade.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross
Ayten Tartici

Ayten Tartici

Ayten Tartici is a Turkish-born writer based in New York City. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and the Yale Review. She earned her BA from Harvard, before receiving her PhD in comparative literature from Yale.

Photo Credit: Zach Gross