Introducing The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil 2026 Emerging Writer Fellows

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mitchell S. Jackson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist. He is the author of the novel The Residue Years, the essay collection Survival Math, and Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion. His work has appeared in the New York Times magazine, the New Yorker, Esquire, and other major outlets. Jackson is a contributing writer for the New York Times magazine, a columnist for Esquire, and holds the John O. Whiteman Dean’s Distinguished Professorship in English at Arizona State University. He is a 2011 alumnus of The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowship.

Lisa Lucas is an arts administrator, based in Brooklyn, New York. Lucas has previously served as Senior Vice President and Publisher of Pantheon and Schocken Books; Executive Director of the National Book Foundation; and Publisher of Guernica magazine, following many years in the nonprofit sector. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Book Foundation and the National Council of Graywolf Books.