2026 Jack Hazard Fellows
Jack Hazard Fellows are writers of fiction, creative nonfiction, or memoir. The $5,000 fellowship is awarded in support of an ongoing project in one of these genres. They are full-time, current instructors in an accredited high school (grades 9-12)—and contracted to return to their schools in Fall 2026. The goal is to reward and incentivize talented writers who teach in secondary schools. These writers who teach inspire their students, high schools, and communities, and provide a professional model of writers working to find meaning and to create art in chaotic times.
Since 2022, we have awarded 45 Jack Hazard Fellowships to applicants from 17 states. In 2026, hundreds of talented, worthy writers who teach high school applied from thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia, and we sincerely thank all who applied. Of the numerous sterling candidates in a highly competitive field who submitted marvelous work we chose seven 2026 Jack Hazard Fellows from states around the nation.
New Literary Project celebrates their life-changing contributions, and gives them widespread public acknowledgement along with much-needed freedom to devote to their own writing. For many writers who teach full time, that’s what summer is for.
Meet the 2026
Jack Hazard Fellows
Jack Hazard Fellows are writers of fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir or poetry. They are full-time, current instructors in an accredited high school (grades 9-12, teaching in the 2025-26 academic year)—and contracted to return to their schools in Fall 2026.
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SC Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities, Greenville, SC
Open Orbit (Poetry)Emily Cinquemani is the Poetry Instructor at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, a public, residential arts high school in her hometown of Greenville, SC, where she also serves as Creative Writing Department Chair. Her poetry has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in several journals including Third Coast, Copper Nickel, Atmo, Southeast Review, NELLE, Poetry Northwest, Ploughshares, and Colorado Review.
In addition to teaching high school students for the past five years, she teaches community writing classes through a local organization called Writeshare and works as a poetry editor for the Adroit Journal. She earned her MFA in Poetry from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
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CICS Northtown Academy, Chicago, IL
Wilderness Grace (Fiction)
For 23 years, James Klise has been the high school librarian at CICS Northtown Academy in Chicago. He’s also a fiction writer whose novels for teens include the Edgar Award-winning mystery The Art of Secrets and the ALA Stonewall Honor-winning Love Drugged. His most recent book, I’ll Take Everything You Have (Algonquin Young Readers), was a 2023 Kirkus Best of the Year selection.
His short stories and essays have appeared in New Orleans Review, StoryQuarterly, Southern Humanities Review, Bennington Review, Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere. Mr. Klise also leads a popular year-long writing workshop for adults at StoryStudio Chicago, a non-profit writing community.
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Cass Technical High School, Detroit, MI
Ribboned Together (Poetry)
Brittany Rogers is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and lifelong Detroiter. Her work has been published widely, including the Academy of American Poets, Lit Hub, The Hopkins Review, Lambda Literary, and Oprah Daily. She is Editor-in-Chief of Muzzle Magazine, co-host of VS Podcast, and the author of the poetry collection Good Dress, a Michigan Notable Book for 2025, and finalist for both the NAACP Image Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry (Tin House, 2024). In 2025, Brittany was awarded the Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award and a Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellowship.
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The Bush School
Seattle, WAEverything We Couldn't Be (Creative Nonfiction)
Bea Chang is a writer, feminist, and traveler currently living in Seattle, Washington. Her personal essays have appeared in Arts & Letters, Hobart, The Offiing, Redivider, and other publications.Bea’s work has received a Pushcart Prize nomination, and garnered Notable Mentions in the Best American Essays and the Best American Sports Writing series.
She has won both the Susan Atefat Prize for Nonfiction and Beacon Street Nonfiction Contest. In addition, Bea is the recipient of fellowships from the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference, and has been awarded residencies at Monson Arts, Storyknife Writers Retreat, Dear Butte Residency, among others.
When she is not writing, Bea enjoys playing basketball, exploring new hiking trails, and planning her next trip with her travel companion.
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Annie Wright Schools, Tacoma, WA
What is Empathy But An Animal (Poetry)Ambalila Hemsell is a writer and educator from Colorado and South India. She is the author of the poetry collection Queen in Blue. The recipient of a Kundiman Fellowship, a former Writer in Residence at InsideOut Literary Arts in Detroit, and a Pushcart nominee, her poetry can be found in Fairytale Review, Columbia Journal, Narrative Magazine, and elsewhere. Her work focuses on land, motherhood, and radical imagination. She lives in Tacoma, WA.
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Pembroke Hills School, Kansas City, MO
The Ministry of Loneliness (Poetry)
Luisa Muradyan is originally from Odesa, Ukraine and is the author of I Make Jokes When I'm Devastated (Bridwell Press, 2025) When the World Stopped Touching (YesYes Books, 2027), and American Radiance (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). She holds a Ph.D. in Poetry from the University of Houston and won the 2017 Raz/ Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize. Additionally, Muradyan is a member of the Cheburashka Collective, a group of women and nonbinary writers from the former Soviet Union. Additional work can be found at Best American Poetry, the Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, and Only Poems among others.
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School of Engineering & Sciences, Sacramento, CA
Paper Baby: Stories (Fiction)
Nicole Lozano Simonsen has taught high school English for twenty-two years at various public high schools in Sacramento, CA. Her short stories have appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Washington Square Review, Booth, among other places.
Over the years, as she has worked to carve out time for writing, usually in the wee morning hours, she has received support and encouragement from the Tin House Summer Workshop, Community of Writers, and Salamander Magazine, where she won the Fiction Prize in 2021. For fun, she likes to run with her dog, kayak with her husband, and read, of course.
“My mother was a high school teacher while I was growing up, as well as being a talented painter, but during the school year she was so passionate about teaching that she simply didn't have any time to dedicate to her art. I remember how happy she was when summer came and she finally had the chance to sit down with her oils and easel and canvas and get lost in the art she'd dreamed of making all year long. The Jack Hazard Fellowship is a brilliant way to ensure that our teachers who are also writers have the time and freedom to devote to the art that sustains them.”
—Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies, Florida, & Matrix; 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize Winner
“When I think of the people who have supported and encouraged me throughout my writing career, it is perhaps not surprising that so many of them are teachers. This is particularly true of creative writing; now when I think back of those who taught me, I realize that many of them could only have learned the delicate art of balancing innovation and creativity with hard work if they were writers themselves. What a wonderful, creative fellowship this is, rewarding those whose dedication often goes unsung, so that they might enrich not only their own work, but the gifts they pass along.”
—Daniel Mason, author of The Winter Soldier & A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth; 2020 Joyce Carol Oates Prize Recipient
Jack Hazard Fellowships are sustained by the generosity of System Property. One hundred years ago, Mr. Hazard founded the company that has today become System Property. He was a larger-than-life, mostly self-educated, and deeply curious man who admired education and educators, someone who loved to hear and tell a good story. As a charismatic, visionary entrepreneur and generous philanthropist, he had a profound, unforgettable impact that resonates to this day. New Literary Project is honored and humbled to be associated with his legacy. We love a good story, too, and we believe that scores of good and great stories will come to life as a result of the annual Jack Hazard Fellowships.
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