The Michener Center for Writers is thrilled to congratulate our Director, Bret Anthony Johnston, on being named a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow!

From ghf.org: “Fellows’ projects grapple with timeless themes and timely issues. They explore the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, propose life-changing advancements in medical technology, unearth the historical roots of contemporary crises, and forge new directions in artistic expression.”

For more information, visit The Guggenheim Fellowship’s website: https://www.gf.org/stories/announcing-the-2026-guggenheim-fellows.

The Michener Center for Writers is thrilled to congratulate alumni Megan Kakimoto (MCW ’23) and Carrie R. Moore (MCW ’23) on being named honorees for The National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Awards.

For more visit The National Book Foundation’s site: https://www.nationalbook.org/the-national-book-foundation-announces-2026-5-under-35-honorees/.

Congrats, Megan and Carrie!

The Michener Center for Writers is excited to welcome 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner, poet Marie Howe, to the Harry Ransom Center on April 2, 2026 at 6:00pm. Marie will read a sample of her work from New and Selected Poetry (2024) followed by a reception, signing, and book sales.

RSVP through The Harry Ransom Center. 

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More About Marie Howe:

Marie Howe received the 2015 Academy of American Poets Fellowship and seven as the New York Poet Laureate from 2012-2014. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, AGNI, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, and The American Poetry Review, among others. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets, she currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York City.

Congratulations to Michener Center for Writers alum, Zachariah Ezer (MCW ‘23), for being awarded one of the 2026 Inaugural State of the Art Prizes from Creative Capital.

For the first time in Creative Capital’s 25-year history, the inaugural State of the Art Prize will provide a $10,000 unrestricted grant to 53 individual artists, one in every state, as well as Guam, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. With this new grant, Creative Capital extends its democratic, national, open call to serve more artists at the grassroots level and to foster creativity and innovation in a broad range of rural, regional, and urban communities. More details and complete list of winners available: https://tinyurl.com/yvwvvzth 

Chronicle of Drifting is the debut poetry collection by Japanese poet Yuki Tanaka, exploring themes of rootlessness, belonging, and surrealism through dreamlike imagery inspired by Japanese traditions like tanka and haiku. The book features a restless, wandering voice that moves between different personas and locations, blending the inner and outer worlds in a surreal, often poignant, and sometimes humorous way, with a focus on “lightness” and fluid movement. 

Congrats, Yuki!

Join us at the Ransom Center on Thursday, January 22nd for a reading with MCW’s spring Guest Poetry Faculty, Daniel Khalastchi and Guest Fiction Faculty, Kevin Powers! Register here to attend!

Yeajoon Cho is a writer & filmmaker based in Austin, TX and Los Angeles, CA. His work has screened at notable festivals globally and he has received distinctions from the Academy Nicholl, the Black List, Humanitas, USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and more. The Humanitas College Screenwriting Awards recognize writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced and meaningful way and are currently enrolled in a college or university program. His screenplay sometimes, i wish i was a fish is the winner of the 2025 Humanitas Carol Mendelsohn College Drama Award.

Join Noah Hawley—novelist, screenwriter, and director—and Bret Anthony Johnson, director of the Michener Center for Writers, on Wednesday, November 12th from 6-8pm at the Harry Ransom Center for a screening of the pilot episode of Alien: Earth (released August 2025 on FX). The pilot highlights Hawley’s singular storytelling—his ability to craft complex characters, weave resonant themes, and reimagine iconic franchises with originality and depth. Hawley, recently awarded the Steinbeck Writers’ Retreat Summer Residency, will discuss the craft and vision behind the series as part of this special event. A reception will follow the program.

Join us on October 9th from 6-8pm at the Harry Ransom Center for a poetry reading with Sandra Lim. Sandra Lim’s previous collections of poetry include The Wilderness (W.W. Norton), winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize selected by Louise Glück, and Loveliest Grotesque (Kore Press). She is the recipient of the 2023 Jackson Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Levis Reading Prize. Her writing has appeared in a range of journals, including The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, Poetry, The Baffler, and The New York Times Magazine, among others. In 2023, she was named Distinguished University Professor at UMass Lowell, where she teaches literature and creative writing. Born in Seoul, Korea, she now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Set in Ukraine, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-its-kind snail. This darkly comic novel explores survival, love, and hope in times of encroaching darkness.