After untold hours of reading through submissions and talking to amazing talent from across the world, we are excited to announce the six residents for the upcoming New Orleans Writers’ Residency. Congratulations to the selected applicants, as well as all those amazing writers who submitted an application. We couldn’t fit all our favorites in — hope to see you next time.
-Team NOWR
Stephanie Fields
Stephanie Fields is a writer, editor, and 2018 Cleveland Arts Prize “On The Verge” Fellow. Her work has been published by online outlets like Blavity, Rookie, and The Establishment.
When she is not writing she is reading, producing visual media pieces, and taking care of her beloved plant-children in preparation of one day owning her own farm.
Justine Dowsett
Justine Alley Dowsett is the author of nine novels and counting, and one of the founders of Mirror World Publishing. Her books, which she often co-writes with her sister, Murandy Damodred, range from young adult science fiction to fantasy/romance. She earned a BA in Drama from the University of Windsor, honed her skills as an entrepreneur by tackling video game production, and now she dedicates her time to writing, publishing, and occasionally role-playing.
Ryley Pogensky
Ryley Rubin Pogensky is a POC trans activist originally hailing from Montclair New Jersey and currently fighting the good fight and writing in Providence. His work as an activist has landed him in the New York Times, Daily Beast, Huffington Post Live, and on various panels at Universities across the country. He is a memoir essayist and content creator who is currently working on a YA dystopian novel.
Sehaj Sethi
Sehaj Sethi is an Indian American screenwriter and an alumna from the New York University Graduate Film program. Early in her writing career, she created a horror feature project for Paperclip Ltd. headed by Yeardley Smith (actor, The Simpsons). She recently finished collaborating with Luma Pictures as one of their staff writers, focusing on intellectual sci-fi feature concepts. She is currently working on moving two of her own scripts into production. One project, a magical realism piece, is being produced by Ian Bryce (producer; Saving Private Ryan, Almost Famous, Transformers). The other, a sci-fi film, is being produced by Jennifer Semler (producer; Hostiles, Tau, The Forest).
Sehaj’s script The Third Rule was a finalist for the 2017 Athena List. Her feature script My Husband’s Corpse placed on the 2012 Purple List, selected by industry judges as one of the best screenplays from NYU, and was an official selection at the Female Eye Film Festival. She is represented by Corrine Aquino at Rain Management and Alex Rincon at United Talent Agency.
Mateus Ferreira
I write and have been writing since I was a kid. I also have been singing, talking and sitting quietly outside to watch Nature do her thing. The difference is, writing is air. I was born in the northeast of Brazil, where rhyme, music and storytelling, memory and ancestry walk hand in hand. I do my best to carry that with me, in me. I have been making and studying art all my life. Maybe not all of it, but thirty out of thirty-three years. I became aware of it as a career possibility at the age of nine, and at twenty-one did the whole academe thing, twice. I came out of it not unscathed but alive and kickin’, with an Undergraduate Degree in Theatre, a Minor in Performing Arts, and a Masters Degree in Playwriting. Hooray! My body of work has a heart that beats stronger with every piece I create. I’m still getting the hang of what it means to be a writer. It’ll probably take me a couple of lifetimes…meanwhile, I’ll keep putting words together in the hopes they’ll awaken some sort of truth in the people who experience them. On a completely unrelated note, I love chocolate and tea. And animals. The free kind. And fire. And dawns.
Luke Muyskens
Luke Muyskens lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. His fiction has appeared most recently in the Baltimore Review, Arts & Letters, and New Madrid. His poetry has appeared most recently in CutBank, New American Writing, and a Pact Press anthology on the opioid epidemic. He has earned an MFA in fiction from Queen’s University of Charlotte and a scholarship from the Tin House Summer Workshop.