The annual WLT Fellowship 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, all while building their literary community.
Each WLT Fellow receives tuition-free access to a curated slate of classes, January through December (20 total). In addition, each 2026 WLT Fellow enjoys a complimentary registration to the 2026 Agents & Editors Conference, including a consultation with a literary agent, as well as complimentary stay at the Hyatt Regency Hotel during that weekend.
The fellowship is open to anyone 18 years of age and older with a passion for writing who is a current resident of 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.
Kimmy Chang
WLT 2026 Fellow
“My work is interested in eros under harsh, everyday light—what it means to keep choosing someone while the code breaks, the roaches pile up, and the garden keeps cycling through its own metamorphoses. Because I don’t come from a literary or an arts program, it’s been easy to believe I “missed my window,” that serious writing is for people who chose differently at eighteen. The poetry I write is my refusal of that idea.”
Taylor Howell
WLT 2026 Fellow
“When asked to describe my writing with one word, I always say messy, as being human is inherently a messy endeavor. I strive to write stories for readers who are told their feelings are too large whilst providing a spectrum of bisexual representation.”
Michelle Kraft
WLT 2026 Bess Whitehead Scott Creative Writing Fellow
“I write nonfiction and fiction. I am intrigued with how place informs identity. My ancestral roots run deep in Texas, but my family moved about throughout my childhood. I question how–and to what extent–each site became home, a refuge, a ‘querencia.’ How do we each become who we are in relation to place?”
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.
Catherine Misener
WLT 2026 Fellow
“My writing explores the liminal. Speculative stories about the boundaries between death and (re)birth. Characters on the cusp of change, uncertain of fully embracing their future. The uneasy, shadowy places between thresholds where wounds and flaws and fears so often haunt.
What I strive most to capture in my work is that moment when a character realizes their ‘old ways’ of doing things no longer serve and that if they want to live—really, fully live—something must change. It is this moment of ‘letting go’ that most intrigues me, perhaps because I’m at that moment myself. ”
Abhijith Ravinutala
WLT 2026 Fellow
“My work explores how we make sense of life and loss through culture and faith. As a recovering tech consultant, I’m also begrudgingly intrigued by the impacts of technology on our society. I try my best to tell satisfying stories that touch hearts. Follow my journey on Substack if you’d like!”