Writing Residency

About

The Writing Residency is a ten-day program designed exclusively for writers of color. The program offers workshops, readings, craft talks, and discussions with professionals from the literary and publishing industry. The goal of the program is to nurture emerging and established writers of color, to create opportunities for publication, and establish a wide network of support for writers of different backgrounds. The program will provide workshops in poetry and prose, craft talks, daily readings (by guests and program participants), classes, generative sessions, and more.

Dates & Fees

The upcoming residency will run on February 18 - 27, 2027 and will be held virtually. The program costs $2,800, and several partial fellowships are available every year, depending on funding availability. Applications must be submitted by the priority deadline to be eligible for fellowships. Anaphora Fellows and returning alumnx will have the opportunity to attend the program at a discounted rate.

Applications are now open! The priority deadline is September 20th; with the final deadline of September 30th. Applications are reviewed by an anonymous admission board of peers, which rotates every year. Notifications will be sent out at the end of September (including notifications of fellowships). A non-refundable security deposit of $300 is required within two weeks of notification; program fees must be paid entirely prior to the beginning of the residency.

If you have any questions, please check out the residency’s FAQ page, or contact us.

Speakers

Chris Abani

Chris Abani is an acclaimed novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. Born in Nigeria to an Igbo father and English mother, he grew up in Afikpo, Nigeria, received a BA in English from Imo State University, Nigeria, an MA in English, Gender, and Culture from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He has resided in the United States since 2001. Abani’s fiction includes The Secret History of Las Vegas (Penguin 2014), nominated for the Hurston/Wright 2015 Legacy Award, Song For Night (2007); The Virgin of Flames (2007); Becoming Abigail (2006); GraceLand (2004); and Masters of the Board (1985). His poetry collections are Smoking the Bible (2022), which was shortlisted for the 2023 PEN America literary awards; Sanctificum (2010); There Are No Names for Red (2010); Feed Me The Sun – Collected Long Poems (2010); Hands Washing Water (2006); Dog Woman (2004); Daphne’s Lot (2003); and Kalakuta Republic (2001). Poet Kwame Dawes has noted that “Abani’s line has a sharp precision that turns a scream into a line of memorable lyric music without losing the emotion and force.” Through his TED Talks, public speaking, and essays, Abani is known as an international voice on humanitarianism, art, ethics, and our shared political responsibility. His critical and personal essays have been featured in books on art and photography, as well as Witness, Parkett, The New York Times, O Magazine, and Bomb. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Graceland, the PEN Beyond the Margins Award, the Hurston Wright Award, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship, among many honors. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Romanian, Hebrew, Macedonian, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Dutch, Bosnian, and Serbian. Abani’s many research interests include African Poetics, World Literature, 20th Century Anglophone Literature, African Presences in Medieval and Renaissance Culture, The Living Architecture of Cities, West African Music, Postcolonial and Transnational Theory, Robotics and Consciousness, Yoruba and Igbo Philosophy, and Religion. Abani is currently a Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University. He lives in Chicago.

Aracelis Girmay

Aracelis Girmay is a poet who makes works across genres. She is the author of the poetry collections GREEN OF ALL HEADS (BOA, 2025), the black maria (BOA, 2016), Kingdom Animalia (BOA, 2011), and Teeth (Curbstone, 2007). For her work she was named a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2018. Her books have also been named finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She has received fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, Civitella Ranieri, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Cave Canem Foundation, among other foundations. Girmay is the author of the chapbook, and was a flower, made in collaboration with book artist Valentina Améstica. Other recent collaborations include the picture books Kamau & ZuZu Find a Way with artist Diana Ejaita and What Do You Know? with artist Ariana Fields (both published with Enchanted Lion). Commissioned by the Authors Guild in collaboration with Tanglewood, Girmay is currently working on an experiment for the stage with director Dawn M. Simmons and musicians Ashleigh Gordon and Brittany J. Green. Girmay is the editor of How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA, 2020) and So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth (Haymarket Books, 2023). She is on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund and in 2025 completed her final year as Editor-at-Large for the Blessing the Boats Selections.

Terrance Hayes

Terrance Hayes is the author of seven poetry collections: So to Speak; American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin, a finalist for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and TS Eliot Prize; How to Be Drawn; Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award for poetry; Muscular Music, recipient of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; Hip Logic, winner of the 2001 National Poetry Series, and Wind in a Box. His prose collection, To Float In The Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism. His most recent book, Watch Your Language, is a collection of graphic reviews, illustrated prose, and visualized poetics addressing the last century of American poetry. Hayes has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and Whiting Foundation, and is a professor of English at New York University.

Sangamithra Iyer

Sangamithra Iyer is the author of Governing Bodies:  A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed (Milkweed Editions 2025), a lyrical reckoning of the ways bodies—human, animal, water— are controlled and liberated.  She is a writer and a licensed professional civil engineer who holds a B.E. in  Civil Engineering from the Cooper Union , an M.S. in Geotechnical Engineering from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Creative Writing  from Hunter College, where she was a recipient of a Hertog Fellowship. She is the recipient of a Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellowship at the New York Public Library, a Cafe Royal Foundation Literature Grant and a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant.

Ladan Osman

Ladan Osman is the author of Exiles of Eden, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and a Whiting Award, and The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony, winner of the Sillerman Prize. Osman’s poetry has been translated into over 10 languages. Her images were exhibited by Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Arts Incubator, Furious Flower, and the New York African Film Festival. Her work as a director includes: The Ascendants, Just Sam, and Sun of the Soil. She lives in New York.

Erika L. Sánchez

Erika L. Sánchez is the daughter of Mexican immigrants. A novelist, poet, and feminist Sánchez is the author the debut poetry collection Lessons on Expulsion as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling young adult novel, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. Most recently, she published the critically acclaimed memoir-in-essays Crying in the Bathroom, which has been optioned for television. Her books have been translated and published in Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Brazil, France, Mexico, Poland, Turkey, and Italy. Sánchez was a Fulbright Scholar, a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent fellow from the Poetry Foundation, a Princeton Arts Fellow, and a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry. She’s appeared on WGN, PBS, NPR, Good Morning America, Telemundo, Univision, and MSNBC. Sánchez earned a BA from UIC, an MFA from the University of New Mexico, and holds an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from New School University. She lives in Chicago with her family.

Wally Subhap

Wally Suphap (he/they) is a nonfiction writer, editor, lawyer, and educator. He is the founding editor of The Plentitudes literary magazine showcasing works in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and flash by diverse voices. He is the author of Thirteen Ways of Interrogating an Incident, a short memoir examining the intersectionality of queerness, masculinity, and power, selected as the overall winner of the 2022 Fish Short Memoir Prize; his essays have also received placements in the Writer’s Digest Personal Essay Contest and CRAFT's Hybrid Writing Contest. Originally from Bangkok and raised in Los Angeles, he holds a J.D. and M.F.A. from Columbia University, where he was a Lenfest Fellow. Previously, he practiced corporate law as a dual qualified New York attorney and Hong Kong solicitor. He is currently based in New York City, where he teaches undergraduate writing and literature at Columbia University and Bard College.