The annual WLT Fellows Program offers a group of five emerging writers the opportunity to spend a full year honing their craft and learning about the business of writing.
Each WLT Fellow receives tuition-free access to a curated slate of classes, two per month (24 total). In addition, each WLT Fellow receives individual support on the business side of writing, including composing a query letter and connecting with literary agents. Plus, each WLT Fellow is assigned to a staff member for direct support throughout the year.
The fellowship is open to anyone 18 years of age and older with a passion for writing who currently lives in Texas. The fellowship specifically aims to assist writers in need of financial assistance in reaching their writing goals. In addition, writers of color, ethnic minorities, those who identify as LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, and other members of communities historically underrepresented by the literary community are particularly encouraged to apply.
Applications for the upcoming year are accepted starting November 1 through November 30. Details and guidelines will be shared on this page on November 1, 2023, for the 2024 Fellowship Program.
Anna Adami
WLT 2023 Fellow
Anna Adami is a writer in Denton, Texas.
“Through research, personal narrative, and analytic meditation, I explore questions made crucial by our climate crisis: How can we invest in and nurture our waterways? How do they invest in and nurture us? These initial questions flow into countless tributaries: Who is the water? What is her history? How does one practice empathy? Define success? How does one move to a new place respectfully? As I write, water takes on a spiritual life as well as a physical one. In an era of estrangement, water connects. “
Joni Chan
WLT 2023 Fellow
Joni Chan is a writer in Austin, Texas.
“I write short stories about people torn between dual identities — immigrants, people in post-colonial societies, diaspora, and those trying to reconcile the traditional and the modern. I am interested in how class, race, the environment, and technology shape our identities and relationships.”
Jane Estes
WLT 2023 Bess Whitehead Scott Creative Writing Fellow
Jane Estes is a writer in Georgetown, Texas.
“My writing, at its most aspirational, is a way to look at things with a different perspective or offer a small glimmer that opens a mind, a heart, a conversation. To make people think or feel something on a deeper level than they previously did is the magic, isn’t it?”
About the Bess Whitehead Scott Fellowship: Formerly a scholarship, the Bess Whitehead Scott Fellowship is awarded to one writer over the age of 40 every year, selected from the pool of fellowship applicants, who we believe embodies the spirit of Bess Whitehead Scott, a Texas writer, a friend of the WLT, and a trailblazer who served as inspiration to so many. You can learn more about Bess and her legacy here.
Julia Lee Harter
WLT 2023 Fellow
Julia Lee Harter is a writer in Austin, Texas.
“I like to tell stories that focus on the lived experience of disabled folk beyond tropes and plot devices. I hope my work can can be a step towards more authentic representation by disabled people for disabled people.”
Tommy Mouton
WLT 2023 Fellow
Tommy Mouton is a writer in Austin, Texas.
“I crave another writing community, one that will allow me to be accountable to myself and to others and, more importantly, to my art. Working with a cohort of writers (and writing professionals) will continue to inform, I know, the way in which I write, the way in which I teach, the way in which I effect change.”
