READ THE BIOS OF THE 2024 MCWC SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS!
We are thrilled to announce that 15 participants have been selected to join us in Mendocino for the 2024 conference as scholarship recipients. Thanks to our generous donors, our scholarship winners have been granted full tuition for the conference. Many are also being assisted with travel and housing accommodations. Below is a list of winners:
ALINA LIN - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Alina currently attends NYU's MFA in Fiction as a full-ride recipient of the Jill Davis and Departmental Fellowships, and is an Editorial Intern at One Story magazine. She grew up in New Zealand and worked in NYC prior to her MFA. She has received support from Tin House and the Juniper Summer Institute, amongst others, and is a 2024 Finalist in the Kenyon Review's Short Fiction Contest. You can find her on Instagram at @alieenaaaa.
Alina writes, "I'm hoping to work on my novel, which centers around the experiences of women from different intersectional identities, at MCWC, and am excited to learn more about novel writing from teachers and students alike. I'm especially looking forward to immersing myself in the MCWC community as well!
ALYSON SAGALA - Octavia Butler Memorial Scholarship for Speculative Fiction
Alyson Sagala (she/her) is a writer based in Mendocino County, who came of age in the south bay city of San Jose. Her writing gravitates towards themes of identity, familial relationships, and one's connection to place. Her background is in non-profit, and she spent the last half of the 2010s living and working abroad. She is currently working on a novel about the search for belonging, ambition, misplaced desire and the untold stories of the Lands we occupy.
CARRIE LYNN HAWTHORNE - Anne G. Locascio Memorial Scholarship
Carrie Lynn Hawthorne is a writer from Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies. For links to recent publications, check out her website at carrielynnhawthorne.com.
COOPER ROBLES - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship (High School)
Cooper Robles is an artist from Fort Bragg, California. He is currently a student at the Fort Bragg High School, and spends most of his free time working on various creativities. With writing being one of his main passions, he writes a variety of different genres. Frequently delving into things like fantasy, fiction, short stories, and even quite often poetry. He loves all things related to the arts, not limiting to writing. Be it visual arts such as painting, drawing or ceramics, or auditory such as music, which is one of his main muses. When he’s not doing any of the above, you can most likely find him with one of his many cats.
DIANN LEO-OMINE - Teresa Connelly First Taste Scholarship
Diann Leo-Omine (she/her) is a Pushcart-nominated creative nonfiction writer born and raised in San Francisco (Ramaytush Ohlone land) and the colorfully boisterous Southern Chinese-Toisanese diaspora. To combat the recent swell of hate crimes against Asian Americans, she co-curated and edited the charity food zine Lunchbox Moments, featured in Food & Wine and KQED. A grateful alum of Tin House and Rooted & Written (The Writers Grotto), she is currently devising a hybrid manuscript borderline memoir about her grandmother. IG and X: @sweetleoomine | sweetleoomine.com
Photo by eyeCatchLight Photography
ELENA CARANICOLAS - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship (High School)
Coming soon!
FREJ BARTY - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship (High School)
Frej is an aspiring filmmaker, cinematographer, suddenly a poet? and general multi-hyphenate storyteller who hates that neologism. Defined by finding and giving hope, he is an all-around nerd with a love for anything analog- from the Mendocino High School Radio Station KAKX to pinball. The bio just keeps shifting, though, because he is still finding a voice and a way of living.
GABRIEL MIRANDA - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Gabriel Miranda is an emergent two-spirit Puerto Rican poet and religious anthropologist living in NYC. He has won a first place prize at Empyrean Literary Magazine for poetry, has published in two literary journals, and wrote as a poet in residence at Woodward Residency. He spends his days contemplating the threads between what was ancient and is now modern as he weaves a new dream of creative expression.
GRACE WARD - Ginny Rorby MG/YA Scholarship
Grace Ward is a multi-faceted writer from Boise, Idaho. Currently, she mainly works in YA fiction. Grace is a graduate of The National Theatre Institute, Boise State University and a current MFA candidate at Antioch University LA. As a playwright her work has been produced with Connective Theatre Co, Surel’s Place, Brick by Brick Players, The Minnesota Fringe Festival, Storyfort and more. She is also a founding member of Fishmarket Theatre Collaborative (NYC) and Haute Nautilus Theatre (Boise). When she’s not writing, Grace loves to ski, mountain bike and collect postcards.
LEAH KORICAN - Norma Watkins Scholarship
Leah Korican is a writer and visual artist. Her writing has been published in Heartwood Literary Magazine, Literary Mama, and Canary, among others. Her large-scale cutout artwork has been shown nationally including a site-specific installation in the Nashville International Airport. She spent her childhood near Cave Junction, Oregon, her teens in Florence, Italy, and makes her home in Oakland, CA. You can see and read more of her work at www.leahkorican.com or on Instagram @leahkorican.
Leah writes, “I am currently completing a memoir that tells the story of my seven years living on Sunnyridge Commune, from its founding in 1968, when I was six until it disbanded in 1975 when I was almost thirteen. I am excited to work with and learn from all the writers in gorgeous Mendocino.”
PHANNARAI INKUN - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship (High School)
Phannarai Inkun is currently a junior at the Mendocino High School. This year, they are in the AP Literature class where they, along with many other students, contemplate the human condition and what makes a person tick. They are an avid storyteller in all of its forms whether that be through writing or talking the ears off of all of their friends. They co-run the High School's Writer's Club where like-minded people gather and talk about writing, (as opposed to actually writing, because that's hard).
Phannarai writes: "For this conference, I will be trying my hands at being a poet. It is something I have only dabbled in in the past and I would love to become better at it. As someone who talks enough for two people and overthinks enough for a dozen, I am trying to find new ways to better convey my thoughts and emotions."
RUCY CUI - Margaret Speaker Yuan Memorial Scholarship
Rucy Cui is a writer from San Jose, California, who has also called Texas, Wyoming, and the south of France home. Her stories have been awarded the Barry Hannah Prize and the Bennington Fiction Prize. Her nonfiction appears in Lonely Planet. A 2024-2026 Wallace Stegner Fellow, she is the recipient of scholarships from the Sewanee Writers' Conference and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. She is currently at work on a novel.
SARA SON - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Sara Son is a writer and poet from Queens. Her work has appeared in Cream City Review, Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Margins, Smokelong Quarterly, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Johns Hopkins, and is currently pursuing her MFA at UC Irvine. She lives in Southern California and is working on a novel and poetry collection. You can find her @saramjson.
TANYA ŽILINSKAS - Marion Deeds Scholarship
Tanya Žilinskas is a first generation American living in Northern California. Her fiction has appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Southern Humanities Review, Shenandoah, Puerto del Sol, Porter House Review, The Florida Review, and elsewhere. She received her MFA at the University of San Francisco, where she was awarded the post-graduate teaching fellowship. Tanya is a reader for Electric Literature, an affiliate editor for Alaska Quarterly Review, and the former editor-in-chief of Invisible City. More can be found online at tanyazilinskas.com.
Tanya is working on a novel about early internet hoaxes and the ethics of documentary filmmaking, and a California Gothic novel-in-stories set in a surreal version of Marin County. She is looking forward to connecting with and learning from the writing community at MCWC.
