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
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
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
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
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
Fiction & Poetry
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
The 2024-2025 Emerging Writers Festival will take place Wednesday, April 2 - Friday, April 4, 2025. We will share details of the schedule of events as they become available. You can look forward to readings, craft talks, a panel discussion, and closing events.
Readings offer the opportunity for you to join our emerging writers as they give readings
of their works. You can also engage with the writers during a Q&A session. Get a peek behind the curtain and discuss writing techniques, processes, and more
with our emerging writers. Craft talks offer the opportunity to practice and get feedback
on your own craft as you work side-by-side with our emerging writers through writing
prompts and exercises. The EWF wraps up with a panel discussion with all emerging writers. A Bye Bye BBQ celebrating
the end of the festival begins immediately after the conclusion of the panel.Readings
Craft Talks
Panel Discussion & Closing Events
Student Organizing Committee
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.
“EWF was one of the main reasons why I decided to attend F&M.”
"EWF was one of the main reasons why I decided to attend F&M back when I was just
a high schooler trying to decide which college was a good fit for me. I loved the
idea of EWF, an event to celebrate talented writers, and allowing F&M students and
Lancaster locals to hear their stories and the reasons why they love to write. So
when I was selected to join the 2024 EWF Committee, I felt so honored. This spring,
I now have the opportunity to work alongside amazing students who share the same deep
appreciation and love for storytelling, and I am so excited to bring this year's EWF
festival to life with my peers and F&M faculty to give every attendee a rewarding
and fun experience!"
— Gyana Guity ’24, 2023-2024 EWF Student Organizing Committee“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to help plan an event of this caliber that will
bring together creatives, writers, students, faculty, and Lancasterians alike in such
a special way.”
"By being a part of the EWF planning committee, I’m most excited to be in a community
dedicated to all things writing and language. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity
to help plan an event of this caliber that will bring together creatives, writers,
students, faculty, and Lancasterians alike in such a special way. It’s a dream being
able to learn from brilliant emerging writers, and to work alongside my peers in order
to do so."
— Olivia Schmid '24, 2023-2024 EWF Student Organizing Committee“Learning advanced skills of planning, designing, collaborating, as well as shadowing
prominent writers will allow me to personally grow as a student of fine arts.”
"Being selected to participate on the EWF planning committee is such an honor, as
it allows me to further immerse myself into a new, though equally educational aspect,
of the creative writing world. Learning advanced skills of planning, designing, collaborating,
as well as shadowing prominent writers will allow me to personally grow as a student
of fine arts."
— Isabel Hoin '24, 2023-2024 EWF Student Organizing Committee