Emerging Writers Festival
Championing the Work of Rising Writers
Each spring, the English department at Franklin & Marshall College hosts its annual Emerging Writers Festival, dedicated to championing the work of writers early in their careers. Since its inception in 2002, the Festival has been a collaborative effort between students and faculty, bringing people together across the campus community and beyond for readings, workshops, and the opportunity to mix, formally and informally, with some of the country’s most exciting new literary talents. Generously supported by Edna Hausman P'85 and Richard D. Hausman '50, P'85 and the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House, the Emerging Writers Festival is a marquee event in F&M’s literary year.
2024-2025 Emerging Writers
Katie Moulton
Creative Nonfiction
Katie Moulton is the author of the audio memoir, Dead Dad Club: On Grief and Tom Petty (Audible 2022). Her essays, stories, and music criticism appear in The Believer, New England Review, Oxford American, Ninth Letter, Village Voice, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by MacDowell, Bread Loaf, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, VCCA-France, and other organizations. She lives in Baltimore and teaches creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and the Newport MFA.
Kelan Nee
Poetry
Kelan Nee is a carpenter and poet from Massachusetts. His debut collection, Felling, was released in May 2024 and was the winner of the 2023 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry. His work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, the Paris Review, the Yale Review, Adroit Journal and elsewhere. He lives in Houston where he is a Ph.D. candidate in critical poetics and the editor of Gulf Coast Journal.
Jamila Osman
Creative Nonfiction
Jamila Osman is a Somali writer, educator, and community organizer based in Portland, Oregon. She has taught creative writing from Portland to Palestine, and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. She received the 2019 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, the 2021 Black Warrior Review's Flash contest, and The Bellingham Review's 2022 Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction. She is the author of the poetry chapbook A Girl is a Sovereign State. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Djerassi, Caldera, and Nawat Fes. Some of her writings can be found in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, Al Jazeera, Catapult, Diagram, and in several anthologies.
Leslie Sainz
Poetry
Leslie Sainz is the author of Have You Been Long Enough at Table (Tin House, 2023), winner of the 2024 Audre Lorde Award and a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, the New England Book Award, and the Vermont Book Award. The daughter of Cuban exiles, her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, the Yale Review, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She’s received fellowships, scholarships, and honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, CantoMundo, the Miami Writers Institute, The Adroit Journal, and the Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts at Bucknell University. A former guest host of the award-winning podcast The Slowdown, she currently works as the managing editor of New England Review and teaches in the Newport MFA program at Salve Regina University.
Lauren K. Watel
Poetry & Fiction
Lauren K. Watel’s debut collection of prose poetry, Book of Potions, was awarded the 2023 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, selected by Ilya Kaminsky. It will be published in February 2025 by Sarabande Books. Her poetry, fiction, essays and translations have appeared widely, including in The Paris Review, The Nation and The New York Review of Books. Her work has won prizes from Prairie Schooner, Writer’s Digest, Poets and Writers, Moment Magazine, Karma Foundation and Mississippi Review. She was awarded a Visiting Artist residency at the American Academy in Rome, a Distinguished Fellowship at Hambidge Art Center and a residency at Art Farm at Serenby. Her prose poem honoring Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was set to music by Pulitzer-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and the piece premiered at the Dallas Symphony.
Schedule of Events
Wednesday, April 2
Thursday, April 3
Craft Talks
Philadelphia Alumni Writers House
10 - 11 a.m. | Jamila Osman
1 - 2 p.m. | Katie Moulton
2:30 - 3:30 p.m. | Kelan Nee
Second Night Reading
7:30 p.m. | Green Room Theatre
- Leslie Sainz
- Lauren K. Watel
Craft Talks
10 - 11 a.m. | Leslie Sainz
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. | Lauren K. Watel
Panel Discussion
12:30 p.m. | All emerging writers
Bye Bye Barbecue
1:15 p.m.
An Emerging Writers Festival student organizing committee is formed each year, offering
students hands-on experience in bringing a literary festival to life. Two students
are assigned as "shadows" for each writer, tasked with coordinating visits and handling
audience introductions prior to readings. Meet some of the student shadows behind
this beloved campus tradition.Student Organizing Committee