In 2024, Haymarket Books, along with the Mellon Foundation, launched a new fellowship aimed at supporting and uplifting writers impacted by the criminal legal system: The Writing Freedom Fellowship. Today, they’ve announced their second annual cohort of fellows, twenty writers whose work explores “themes ranging from grief and addiction to survivorship, language, and repair.” The fellowship, which includes professional support, education, and an award, is “designed to encourage community among writers, to foster their creative practices, and to bring their essential voices and perspectives to broader audiences.”
“We couldn’t have entirely imagined all that would grow from this initiative,” said Haymarket Books Program Manager Jyothi Natarajan in a statement. “We’ve been able to witness connections unfold that continue to strengthen our commitment to supporting writers who have been touched by the carceral system. We’re thrilled by the continuation of this project and the renewal of funding, which will allow us to expand support to 100 writers across five years.”
The 2025 Writing Freedom Fellows were selected by panel comprised of Chris Abani, Keri Blakinger, Deesha Philyaw, Patricia Smith, and Javier Zamora. Congratulations to all the 2025 fellows:
Ra Avis (she/her) is a memoirist who in her work navigates the deeply personal intersections of grief, incarceration, and disability. She writes regularly at Rarasaur.com. Avis, based in California, is currently at work on Kites Library, an incarceration-centered zine archive.
B Batchelor (he/him) is a poet and artist based in Minnesota. His poetry has appeared in the Nation, Columbia Journal, and Duende. He has won multiple awards from PEN America and was a 2022 finalist for the Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry. His chapbook, Disfigured Hours, is forthcoming from Rain Light Press in 2025.
Jeremiah Bourgeois (he/him) is a nonfiction and legal writer whose work focuses on sentencing and corrections. He authored The Extraordinary Ordinary Prisoner: Essays From Inside America’s Carceral State. His scholarship has appeared in the American Journal of Criminal Law and the Seattle Journal for Social Justice.
Dante Clark (he/they) is a poet and performer from the Bronx, NY. Clark explores, through writing poems, the scope and sound of words that inform, delight, and incite toward liberation. He is currently a Goldwater Fellow at New York University’s Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House.
Ajanaé Dawkins (she/her) is a poet, conceptual artist, and theologian. Her work has appeared in Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, the Rumpus, and Prairie Schooner, among others. Her chapbook, BLOOD-FLEX, is forthcoming. Dawkins cohosts the VS Podcast at the Poetry Foundation. She is writing a manuscript exploring the 1990’s disappearance of her great aunt.
Curtis Dawkins (he/him) is the author of the critically-acclaimed collection of short stories The Graybar Hotel (2017). He is currently at work on a novel.
Emile Suotonye DeWeaver (he/him) is a formerly incarcerated activist and writer, and the author of Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine (2025). He’s a 2022 Soros Justice fellow, a Center for Just Journalism fellow, and a 2021 Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize winner. His work has been published widely, including in the San Francisco Chronicle, Colorlines, and Truthout.
Michael Fischer (he/him) is a nonfiction writer and storyteller. In his writing he interrogates the ways in which ecological justice can play a role in dismantling the carceral state. Fischer works at the Center for Justice & Economic Advancement. His writing appears in the New York Times, the Sun magazine, Lit Hub, Guernica, Orion, and elsewhere.
Joe Garcia (he/him) currently lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a reporter for the nonprofit news organization CalMatters. His work has been published in the Sacramento Bee, Alta Journal, MIT Technology Review, Washington Post, and the New Yorker.
torrin a. greathouse (she/they) is a transgender cripple-punk poet and essayist. She is the author of Wound from the Mouth of a Wound, winner of the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and DEED, a 2025 Stonewall Book Award recipient. They teach at Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writing Workshop.
Elizabeth Hawes (she/her) writes prose, plays, and poetry. The recipient of a 2023 Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize with the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism and multiple PEN America Writing Awards, her recent work can be found in Defector, Lux, Prism, black lipstick, The Rumpus, and Santa Clara Review.
Faylita Hicks (they/them) is the author of A Map of My Want (2024) and HoodWitch (2019). Based in Chicago, they are currently working on a debut memoir-in-essays about their incarceration, A Body of Wild Light: The Fall and Rise of An American Poet (2026). Hicks is a Right of Return fellow and the winner of the 2020 Sappho Poetry Award.
Monterica Sadé Neil (she/her) received her MFA from Louisiana State University. She’s been a Tin House Scholar and a Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University. Her writing has appeared in the Offing, the nonprofit news organization MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, and more. She’s currently at work on a memoir.
Anonymous (they/them) is a writer of prose, poetry, and hybrid works. They are the author of multiple chapbooks that establish a language that is visual and aural as much as it is written. Their writing was published in the anthology Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex.
Geneva Phillips (she/her) is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Raised and incarcerated in Oklahoma, she is the author of the memoir Disappearing in Glimpses. Her writing has been honored and included in four published PEN America Prison Writing Awards anthologies.
Janel Pineda (she/her) is a U.S. Salvadoran poet and the author of Lineage of Rain (2021). Pineda is currently pursuing a PhD at UCLA, where her research explores the liberatory capacities of poetry for Central Americans.
Julie Poole (she/her) is a writer based in Austin. She has published two books of poetry, Bright Specimen and Gorgeous Freak. Her essays and journalism can be found in the Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, Bon Appétit, HuffPost, the Baffler, Slate, and the Nation. She is currently working on a memoir.
Nicole Shawan Junior (they/she) is a creative nonfiction and speculative fiction writer. They are a Tin House “Debut Author Over 40” residency recipient, Hedgebrook writer-in-residence, Lambda Literary Emerging Queer Voice, New York Foundation for the Arts Geri Ashur Fellow, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference contributing writer.
Carla J. Simmons (she/her) is a creative nonfiction writer who has been incarcerated in the American South since 2004. She critically examines the roles of imperialism, capitalism, racism, poverty, and class in the carceral system. Her work has been featured in Lux, Prism, and The Appeal. She is currently completing a memoir.
Jesús I. Valles (they/them) is a queer Mexican immigrant writer-performer from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua/El Paso, Texas. Their poems have been featured in Here to Stay, Somewhere We Are Human, and The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, as well as New Republic, Tin House, [PANK], the Slowdown podcast, and Code Switch.
