When Debbie and I took the helm of The Rumpus, supporting writers and editors was one of our most fervent ambitions. To that end, we have launched a series of initiatives that allow us to do so in the ways we can—the Rumpus/Harnisch Microgrants, Writing Fellowships, and Editorial Fellowships.
In this first cycle, we received hundreds of applications for these opportunities and the caliber of candidates was exceptional. As I am often reminded, there is no shortage of exceptional creative talent in this world. What there is a shortage of is patronage. It was very difficult to narrow the applicants to ten microgrant recipients,* two writing fellows, and two editorial fellows but decisions were made and we have our first cohort of winners.
These initiatives would not be possible without the generous support of Ruth Ann Harnisch who is a real champion and patron of independent publications, free speech, creativity, and so much more. We also want to thank Apple for generously providing technology packages to each of the microgrant recipients, equipping them with a MacBook Neo, AirPods Pro 3, and a subscription to Apple Creator Studio to support their creative journeys.
You can learn more about the winners, below. If you’re interested in applying for these opportunities, keep an eye out for our second cycle. And, as always, paid memberships to The Rumpus help support our work and enable us to pay our writers a fair wage for their hard creative work. Consider joining us today!
*A lot of writers do not have working or modern laptops and many don’t own laptops at all. They are writing on their phones, on computers at work, at libraries, and anywhere they can gain access to the technology they need to write the stories they most need to tell. It is very easy to take the tools of our craft for granted.
MICROGRANT WINNERS
T. Abeyta
T. Abeyta is a third-grade dropout who didn’t get a GED but did snag an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She’s published short stories in Hobart Pulp, the Brooklyn Review, Diagram, Boston Review, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner, which made the Notable Literary Nonfiction list of 2024 in The Best American Essays. She’s received support to attend Tin House, Bread Loaf, Kenyon Review, and the Fine Arts Work Center. She’s a 2026–2027 Steinbeck Fellow completing her debut book in Oakland, CA, alongside her bunny, Stormy, who belongs to a banana mafia.
Aaron H. Aceves
Aaron H. Aceves (he/him) is a bisexual, Mexican-American writer born and raised in East L.A. He graduated from Harvard College and received his MFA from Columbia University. His fiction has appeared in Passages North, Epiphany, and The Iowa Review, among other places. He has taught creative writing at UT Austin and with PocketMFA, and his debut novel, This Is Why They Hate Us, was released by Simon & Schuster. It received multiple starred reviews and was named a Best Young Adult Book of 2022 by Kirkus Reviews. He is the winner of Lambda Literary’s 2025 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writer.
LaToya Faulk
LaToya Faulk grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. She received a 2022 Pushcart special mention for the essay “In Search of Homeplace.” Her work has appeared in Scalawag, Southwest Review, Amherst College’s The Common, and Southern Foodways Alliance’s Gravy Quarterly. She has a B.A. in English Literature and a M.A. in Rhetoric and Writing from Michigan State University. She also holds an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Mississippi. She is currently at work on a novel and collection of personal essays.
Julian Guy
Julian Guy is a trans/queer writer and educator in Syracuse, New York. His debut poetry book-in-progress, In the House Where I Love You, was longlisted at YesYes Books and named a finalist for the Raz-Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize. His work has been supported by the McCormack Writing Center, The Constance Saltonstall Foundation, and MVICW. His poems appear in Best New Poets, Queerlings, Sundress Publications, The Adroit Journal, Swamp Pink, and more. When he’s not teaching workshops at the Onondaga Public Library or the McCormack Writing Center, find him online at julianguy.com or at the beach digging up shells.
Danielle Hayden
Danielle Hayden is a writer, journalist, and teaching artist based in Seattle. She also serves as the director of Golf Pencil Group, a community organization that offers writing classes to people who are incarcerated. Her work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals and has led to fellowships, grants, and other opportunities. Danielle created the website 3pistolary.com, which encourages letter writing. She also created a local, outdoor reading series called Prose in the Park. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard and is working on her first book.
L.F. Khouri
L.F. Khouri is a Palestinian writer whose work explores war, memory, and the inheritance of silence. His fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translations appear or are forthcoming in The Missouri Review, New England Review, The Rumpus, Michigan Quarterly Review, Guernica, River Teeth, The Massachusetts Review, The Adroit Journal, EPOCH, Alaska Quarterly Review, Wigleaf, Brevity, and elsewhere. He is the winner of The Georgia Review Prose Prize 2026.
Alina Nguyễn
Alina Nguyễn is the proud queer daughter of Vietnamese immigrants. Her risograph chapbook, Before There Were More Ghosts, was published by Tomorrow Today. A Best of the Net nominee, Alina’s work has appeared in Bellingham Review, Breakwater Review, Lunch Ticket, and others. She is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Chibuike Ogbonnaya
Chibuike Ogbonnaya’s writing explores gender, sexuality, religion, and displacement. Their work has been supported by Lambda Literary, the McCormack Writing Center (Tin House), and PEN America. They earned an MFA from the University of Notre Dame, and they are currently revising a novel-in-stories.
Reema Rao
Reema Rao is a fiction writer from Chicago. Her work has received the Story Foundation Prize from Story, the Larry Brown Short Story Award from Pithead Chapel, and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More of her writing can be read in Witness, The Los Angeles Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband, two little children, and dog, and is currently at work on a short story collection that explores shame.
Marytza K. Rubio
Marytza K. Rubio is a writer, arts administrator, and teaching artist from Santa Ana, CA who creates bold, participatory experiences for readers and audiences. Her debut collection Maria, Maria & Other Stories imagines an untamed Southern California teeming with natural and supernatural forces and was longlisted for a National Book Award. She is currently working on a novel about the elegant deceptions of magicians and diabolical musical theater.
EDITORIAL FELLOWS
Jackson Carter
Jackson Carter is a mixed Jewish and Native American transmasc writer, creative and activist based in Los Angeles. He loves the Oxford comma, detests dangling modifiers, and has been known to unfollow accounts on Instagram after he encounters too many spelling and grammatical mistakes in the captions. As a community advocate, Jackson is a proudly sober leatherman and pageant king who created space for trans and nonbinary title holders during his reign as Mr. Sister Leather. In his free time, he enjoys knitting, making friends with other people’s dogs, and supporting his local queer spaces.
Julia Luna
Juliana Luna is a professor and current Poetry MFA candidate at Brooklyn College. Their poetry, research, and sound work has been published in bethh, eratio, The Believer, #Ranger Magazine, and and is forthcoming in DIALOGIST. You can find more of their musings at www.julia-luna.com.
Finalists
Sara Finnerty
Holly Zhou
Olivia Gross
Yoela Zimberoff
Calvin Gimpelevich
Andrina Tran
Ines Bellina
Emily Yang
Malvika Jolly
Beatriz Brenes Mora
WRITING FELLOWS
Winners
Camila Cal Mello
Camila Cal Mello is a Uruguayan, first-generation, emerging creative nonfiction writer. She earned her MFA from the University of Central Florida, where she received a Provost Fellowship in nonfiction. She is currently a PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi where she teaches literature on campus and in the Prison-to-College Pipeline program. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Good Life Review, Under the Sun, and The Acentos Review.
Amanda Borquaye
Amanda Borquaye is a Ghanaian-American creative nonfiction writer from the American South. She writes from the interior of a youngest daughter in an immigrant family where the lyric allows her to wade through the fragility of belonging in a decaying empire. Her work embodies the necropolitical, exploring who is allowed to live and who must die in the context of immigrant identity. By day, she works in humanitarian response and international development. She is at work on a memoir exploring migration as a ghost story shaped by the specters of empire, colonialism, and the yearning of a life elsewhere.
Finalists
Sammi Chiyao
Pepe Hernandez
Arman Chowdhury
Zachary Cash
Faith Breads
Kasia Nikhamina
Rucy Cui
Leo K.
Alisha Steigerwald
Emilio Cabral
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