Our 2021 Fellows
Amanda Churchill
WLT 2021 Fellow
Amanda Churchill is a writer in Keller, Texas who’s in the revision stage on her first novel. As a writer who is both of Japanese descent and native Texan, she’s “been thinking about who I am as a writer of late, what I believe in, and where I ‘fit’ into the larger literary landscape.”
Jamira Richardson
WLT 2021 Fellow
Jamira Richardson is a writer in San Antonio, Texas and a recent graduate looking to follow her writing dreams. When she was a little girl, she “collected words like spools of wool, using them to weave worlds more wondrous than the one I knew.”
S. N. Rodriguez
WLT 2021 Fellow
S. N. Rodriguez is a writer in Austin, Texas whose work explores themes regarding race, culture, nature, and motherhood. She hopes that her writing may encourage others to strengthen, recover, and celebrate themselves as well as their roots.
Jean Synodinos
WLT 2021 Bess Whitehead Scott Creative Writing Fellow
Jean Synodinos is a writer in Austin, Texas deep into the first draft of a speculative novel. After taking a creative writing class in 2018, she announced to her mother she’d be writing fiction for the rest of her life. “It’s about time,” her mother replied. “Only took you fifty years.”
We’re thrilled to be launching the Bess Whitehead Scott Creative Writing Fellowship to go hand in hand with the WLT Fellowship Program. Every year, we’ll select one writer over the age of 40 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.
Formerly a scholarship, we believe this new fellowship is a fitting tribute to Bess and her legacy and we’re so happy to bestow this inaugural honor on Jean Synodinos.
Amanda Wenger
WLT 2021 Fellow
Amanda Wenger is a writer in Houston, Texas who, when she’s not at her day job as a critical care nurse, is writing fiction that upends traditional myths and fairy tales in surprising and exciting ways. The main question raised by her writing: “How are we going to be here together.”
