The Writers’ League of Texas (WLT) announced the 2021 honorees in their newly created WLT Fellowship Program.

Each of the writers will enjoy a full year of WLT programming, including a curated list of classes (two a month, all year long) and the Agents & Editors Conference in September. In addition, each writer will be paired with a WLT staff member for the year and have lots of opportunities to come together as a group.

These are the inaugural WLT fellows:

Amanda Churchill is a writer in Keller, Texas, who's in the revision stage on her first novel. As a writer who is both of Japanese descent and a native Texan, she's "been thinking about who I am as a writer of late, what I believe in, and where I 'fit' into the larger literary landscape."

Jamira Richardson is a writer in San Antonio, Texas, and a recent graduate looking to follow her writing dreams. When she was a little girl, she "collected words like spools of wool, using them to weave worlds more wondrous than the one I knew."

S. N. Rodriguez is a writer in Austin, Texas, whose work explores themes regarding race, culture, nature, and motherhood. She hopes that her writing may encourage others to strengthen, recover, and celebrate themselves as well as their roots.

Jean Synodinos is a writer in Austin, Texas, deep into the first draft of a speculative novel. After taking a creative writing class in 2018, she announced to her mother she'd be writing fiction for the rest of her life. Synodinos is the first awardee of the new Bess Whitehead Scott Creative Writing Fellowship (formerly a scholarship).

Every year, the WLT will select one writer over the age of forty from the pool of fellowship applicants whom they believe embodies the spirit of Bess Whitehead Scott, a Texas writer and trailblazer who served as inspiration to many.

Amanda Wenger is a writer in Houston, Texas, who, when she's not at her day job as a critical-care nurse, is writing fiction that upends traditional myths and fairy tales in surprising and exciting ways. The main question raised by her writing: "How are we going to be here together?"