We’re thrilled to announce the next fellows for our Writer’s Residency in Downtown Las Vegas. We welcome our fellows Rita Chang-Epigg, Val Wang, and Pallavi Dixit.
Fellows will spend a month in the vibrant heart of downtown Las Vegas, engaging with and becoming a part of the city’s thriving arts scene. The fellowship is designed to give talented writers and other creatives the space, time, and freedom to work on their longform projects, and the bibliophilic joy of living in a fully furnished apartment next to Las Vegas’ literary hub, The Writer’s Block bookstore.
Our apartment is in The Lucy, which also houses the Writer's Block. The Lucy is Beverly Rogers’ multi-use artist residency and complex, dedicated to fostering a creative community in Las Vegas.
Special thanks again to Nevada Humanities, UNLV, and private donors for helping bring these fellowships to life.
rita chang-epigg - september 2024
Rita Chang-Eppig's debut novel, Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea, was a Barnes & Noble Discover, Indie Next, Indies Introduce, and Good Morning America Buzz pick. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2021, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Conjunctions, Clarkesworld, Virginia Quarterly Review, One Story, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, the Writers Grotto, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University.
About her project: The Reverse is a speculative novel following two Chinese American siblings as they try to stay alive in a near-future world. Nyx, a nonbinary "oneironaut," is part of a scientific expedition to the Reverse, a dream reality where dangers lurk around every corner. Dawn, Nyx's sister, has been looking for them ever since they disappeared with the expedition team years ago. In her search for Nyx, Dawn makes increasingly dangerous enemies in a society shaken by climate change, poverty, and disease. What is our responsibility to our own happiness in a crumbling world, and what is our responsibility to the people we love?
val wang - october 2024
Val Wang is an author and filmmaker interested in the intersection between the personal and the global. She is the author of the memoir Beijing Bastard as well as the director of the documentary The Flip Side, which won Best Documentary Short at the 2018 DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon. She lives in Cambridge and is an Associate Professor in the English and Media Studies Department of Bentley University.
About her project: A globe-spanning novel about the friendship between a trio of female circus artists who begin their lives together in a circus school in Beijing, China and go on to travel the world.
pallavi dixit - november 2024
Pallavi Sharma Dixit is a recent winner of the Asian American Writers' Workshop's Pages in Progress competition. Her work has been supported by the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship Program, Intermedia Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Loft Literary Center and the Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Program. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and lives in Minneapolis with her husband, two children and dog, Tiffin.
About her project: Pallavi will be working on a second novel.