MEET THE 2026 MCWC SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS!
We are thrilled to announce that 22 participants have been selected to join us in Mendocino for the 2026 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:
ADAM SPIEGELMAN - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Adam Spiegelman is a writer based in NY. His poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Indiana Review, Cake Zine, The Evergreen Review, AGNI, Grand Journal, and others. He is an Axinn/Stimpson Fellow at NYU pursuing an MFA in non fiction.
AMY OLASSA - Anne G. Locascio Memorial Scholarship
Amy Olassa is from India and lives in the Bay Area. She received her MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California. She was a Tin House Summer Scholar and a Fellow at the San Francisco Writers Grotto. Her short fiction has been featured in the Oyster River Pages, Aster(ix) Journal, Jellyfish Review and Flash Frog.
BRENNA HUMPHREYS - Margaret Speaker Yuan Memorial Scholarship
Brenna is a writer and videographer living on California’s Central Coast. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Kelp Journal, Proud to Be (Southwest Missouri State University Press), Inman News, and others. As president of the Central Coast Passport Rotary Club, she sponsored the Central Coast Writers Conference and awarded scholarships to help local organizations learn storytelling to secure grants. Through her company Concentric 360, she documents some of California's most extraordinary properties, giving her a front-row seat to the collision of luxury, homelessness, and climate-driven housing scarcity that inspires her novel in progress. She holds an MFA in fiction from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She and her husband write a newsletter chronicling their prostate cancer journey, and she fills the rest of her time with family, hikes with her 130-pound Anatolian shepherd, and chasing the perfect tennis serve. Find her on Instagram @brennahums and on Substack.
CYREINE ADAMS - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Cyreine is a writer residing in Santa Cruz, California. She is currently attending USF’s MFA program for Nonfiction Writing. She works at an independent bookstore where she serves as a union steward and organizes writing events for her community. You can usually find her writing about love, loss, and reconnecting to Chicanx identity, but if that fails, she’s probably crafting short fiction about dreams, wounds, and the bizarre.
DEVONNE HART - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
DeVonne Hart is an award-winning social entrepreneur and writer with an extensive creative background. The Urban League of Greater San Francisco Bay Area recognized him for community impact, and multiple academic institutions have acknowledged his innovation in urban agriculture. Hart was also honored by his alma mater’s Africana Studies program for archival research and writing.
Born and raised in the Bay Area, Hart is transferring his interdisciplinary experience into literature. His work is informed by his studies in Africana studies, feminist literature, family history, and archival research. Hart’s writing style is unique, poetic, and diaristic. His work blends historical realism with critical fabulation and spiritual restraint, treating inherited memory as a load-bearing narrative engine.
Hart exited the startup environment to reclaim his peace and took time to bring a rare lens to literature. Writing poetry, literary journal articles, and a matriarchal Black American family saga, currently in novella form, that explores the building, destruction, and reclamation of generational wealth across land, agriculture, migration, and political awakening in mid-century modern America. Exploring the history of Black Western settlement, land ownership, and resistance narratives in Northern California—geographies and histories that remain underrepresented in fiction.
EMILY DEL CARMEN RAMIREZ - Vicente Zeta Colacion Scholarship
Emily del Carmen is a queer Dominican American writer born and raised in the clattering heart of a Brooklyn, NYCHA community. She is currently at work on a short story collection that explores Dominican folklore and identity. She is a 2025 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, 2025 Periplus Fellow, 2025 Kweli Journal Fellow, and a 2025 Martha’s Vineyard Creative Writing Institute Voices of Color Fellow, and has been supported by VONA, Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, and Hudson Valley Writers Center. Her writing can be found in Huizache Magazine, Girls Write Now: Two Decades of True Stories From Young Female Voices, and the journal Wizards in Space.
FRANDASIA WILLIAMS - Nella Larsen Memorial Scholarship
Frandasia “Frannie” Williams received her Master of Fine Arts in Performing Arts from Savannah College of Art and Design. She is a theater director, actor, and teaching artist. Frannie recently directed, The Lifespan of a Fact, Gaslighting: The Musical, and I Am Queen: Nashville. Some of her recent performances include: Corrina, Bank Customer, and Wally's Waiters in Primary Trust at Threebone Theatre, Geppetto and supporting characters in The Children’s Theatre of Charlotte’s production of Pinnochio. Frannie has been credited in commercial and industrial projects for IBM, Wells Fargo, and Subway. One of her short films, Time of Death, debuted in The Wales International Film Festival, Raw Science Film Festival, and received a Gold Award for the Spotlight Short Film Awards. Frannie is pivoting her artistic practice to creative writing and is excited to attend the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference with the hopes of writing her first book, a memoir.
GLORIA JANE PAPPAGEORGE - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Gloria Jane Pappageorge is a writer from beautiful Chicagoland, Illinois. She writes plays and fiction, working now on both a play and a novel, both of which will be completed any day now (maybe). She has a short story in Imposter Review as Gloria Apophasis, and a few plays on New Play Exchange as Gloria Jane. Full of melancholy and brazen spirit, she may one day tell you, Don't Fear The Weight—Take Heart! Hopefully she soon finds a place back in the city…
ISABEL LANZETTA - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Isabel Lanzetta is a poet whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bicoastal Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Oakland Arts Review, and Leviathan, among others. Her poetry has been supported by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is the winner of the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award and a recipient of the Mabelle A. Lyon Poetry Award. When she’s not writing, she enjoys long walks with her dog, ABBA (yes, named after the band). IG: @isalanzetta
JANE MCINNIS - Marion Deeds Scholarship
Jane McInnis is a writer with a background in journalism. Her work has taken her from Florida to California and Mexico City, with stories in The Guardian and Creative Loafing. She now focuses on creative writing and is currently working on a novel about the slow burn of coercive control, alongside a darkly humorous project about reincarnation. Jane teaches high school English and is grateful for the opportunity to work with fellow writers in Mendocino.
JASPER MESSER - Charlie Jane Anders Scholarship
Jasper Messer is a poet, photographer, and sound engineer who likes to write about water/the poisoned watershed of their hometown, dissociation and the feelings of movement & stasis that come along with it, strange dreams, and mirrors. Their poetry conjures an emotional architecture of places and memories that evade language but will for mutual recognition with readers. In other words, their poems are paths to the edge. They live on the unceded lands of the Duwamish people, so-called Seattle, and can usually be found biking around, cooking elaborate meals for hours, listening to music, at the library, or getting into mischief in the woods with friends.
JOY DING - Ginny Rorby MG/YA Scholarship
Joy was raised by her public library. It shows.
She is a clown, a singer, a painter. A hypnotist: one-on-one in hypnotherapy, and group art-trances. For instance: waking as wolves, running howling through the forest, fir and snow and teeth and moon.
She is working on two projects. The first: a YA sapphic retelling of Les Misérables set in surrealist Paris, in which a Chinese Éponine finally gets to be the main character. The second: a goth opera musical fantasy about a mother and daughter trying to remake each other.
Joy earned a master’s in creative writing from UC Davis, where she studied writing and acting, and is an alumna of Kearny Street Workshop’s Interdisciplinary Lab. She lives in South Philadelphia with her partner and 1,356,832 pens.
JULIAN DOOLEY - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Julian Greenwood Dooley is a writer and artist from Lenapehoking New York City. He is an alum of UCLA and the Warman School and will begin an MFA in fiction at the University of Iowa in 2026. His work has been supported by McCormack Writing Center FKA Tin House and the Dog Trot residency.
JULIE MEHTA - Anne G. Locascio Scholarship
Julie Mehta is a writer and editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A finalist for the PEN America Emerging Voices fellowship and a Tin House Summer Workshop alum, her fiction has appeared in publications including Flash Fiction Magazine and Literary Mama. The parent-child bond and the persistence of the past are common themes in her writing, which often features speculative elements. She is working on a novel about a young widow in 1940s India whose choice to defy society to pursue a career and second chance at love threatens her daughter’s future. Learn more at http://www.juliemehta.com and find Julie on social media @meaningseeker.
LEX GARCIA NEX - Anne G. Locascio Scholarship
Lex Garcia Nix is a first-generation college graduate and community college alumna, who teaches at the community college level and is a contributing writer for Sunny’s Journal and Press. She earned her MFA from Antioch University, Los Angeles and has further honed her craft at VONA, Tin House, StoryStudio, and The Community of Writers where she was a recipient of The Ancinas Scholarship. She was recently named a 2026 Periplus Fellow. Lex lives in Southern California and is currently working on a coming-of-age novel.
MALAJIAHNA ROBINSON - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Hello, I am Malajiahna: dreamer, first time mama, and SFSU graduate. I am so excited to be given this opportunity! This is a huge milestone for me, as since I was a little girl I have dreamt of being a writer. Me being here means I finally decided I was worthy of living this dream and stepped toward it out of my comfort zone.
As a writer, I must dare to dream, and believe I hold power in my words and in my mind. I believe we do have the power to (co)write our own stories of our lives. We can imagine, dream, and live our fairytales, we can be the superhero, the explorer, and the magician. Lately I have been choosing to dream in great detail and believe in the possibilities; A mindset that has blessed me many times, including being granted this scholarship to attend my first ever writers conference! I am excited to take my mind further.
Dare to dream. And choose your words wisely!
MARISSA JULES - Norma Watson Scholarship
Marissa Jules is a writer and photographer whose work focuses on living with PTSD, the work of recovering from childhood trauma, and the complexity of navigating both as a queer woman. Marissa started writing as part of her therapeutic process as a way to make sense of her experiences, and never stopped! She has been published in the Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, and has workshopped at Writers In Paradise and LitCamp.
She is currently working on a series of linked essays weaving together her recovery from trauma and discovering her queer identity. Marissa lives with her wife in the greater San Francisco bay area. You can see some of her photography and read her blog at: marissajules.com
MICHAEL WHEET - Octavia Butler Memorial Scholarship for Speculative Fiction
Mike Wheet's writing is forthcoming in The Literary Fantasy Magazine, and has previously been published by The Saturday Evening Post and Shooter Literary Magazine. A graduate of Stanford University, he lives in Los Angeles, where he is completing the Creative Writing certificate program at UCLA Extension.
NAT GOVE - Anne G. Locascio Scholarship
Nat Gove is a poet and writer. Their poems have appeared in the LMNL Anthology, Queer South Zine, Take Care Zine, Saints+Sinners Poetry 2024, Noyo Review, Bayou Review, and Snapdragon’s Anthology. They were a finalist for the Patty Friedmann writing contest 2024 in Creative Nonfiction and a finalist for poetry in 2025. Raised in rural Missouri, she currently lives in New Orleans on a street where wild chickens roam.
OLIVIA CRANDALL - Anne G. Locascio Scholarship
Olivia Crandall is a writer from the Midwest who currently lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vulture, Cake Zine, Points in Case, The Masters Review, and others. She has received support from the McCormack Writing Center (formerly Tin House), StoryBoard, and St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency. You can find more at oliviacrandall.com or @oliviacrandall.
ROSE MENYON HEFLIN - Anne G. Locascio Scholarship
Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet, writer, and visual artist living in Wisconsin, although she grew up in rural, southern Kentucky, where she spent her early childhood running delightedly barefoot, wild, and free – practically feral – among its patchwork of tobacco fields, forests, and secret fishing holes. Although she has been writing since childhood, she only really started publishing in 2021. Now, with over 250 poems published in outlets spanning five continents, her poetry has evolved to include formal, free verse, performance, experimental, and prose. She has also published a few creative nonfiction, fiction, and journalistic pieces. Her work has won numerous state and national awards and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has also participated in various residencies. Still, she is most proud of her more unorthodox accomplishments: two of her haiku were published in a gumball machine; another haiku was used to teach economics to about 100 students at Chuo University in Japan – to great fanfare, apparently; one of her poems was choreographed and danced; a poem inspired a painting; and some of her poetry was performed by Washington, DC’s Rose Theatre Company. She is the 2026 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets Swanson Emerging Poet Fellow, and she enjoys exploring poetry with the developmentally disabled, the elderly, and anyone else who will have her. An OCD sufferer since childhood, Rose Menyon strongly prefers hugging trees instead of people, and she has the photographic evidence to prove it.
SHAYLA KERR - Albertina Tholakele Dube Scholarship
Shayla Kerr is a Congolese Jamaican-American multidisciplinary writer and producer. Shayla was born and raised in Albany and Schenectady, NY in a diverse, working-class inner city community. She recently moved to the Bay Area in August of 2024 to serve as an AmeriCorps member in East Oakland managing a reading center at an elementary school. She is a storyteller specializing in curating narratives through poetry, personal essays, and plays that combat the erasure of vulnerable communities as well as preserve and work with memory. Shayla is currently an MFA candidate at Antioch University Los Angeles for Creative Nonfiction. She is a recipient of Independent Artist and Arts Education grants from the Arts Center of the Capital Region and a Rooted and Written fellow. When she is not writing, Shayla enjoys dancing, attending community events in Oakland, or lounging by Lake Merritt.