Nick Almeida, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Nonfiction
Nick Almeida’s stories and essays have appeared in Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Southeast Review, and elsewhere. Almeida, a PhD candidate at the University of Houston, holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers, where he edited Bat City Review. His chapbook, Masterplans, was selected by Steve Almond as grand prize winner of the inaugural Masters Review Chapbook Open in fiction, and is available now.

Jari Bradley, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry
Jari Bradley (they/them) is a San Francisco native. They are the recipient of an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellowship, an Inprint Donald Barthelme Poetry Prize recipient, and a Cave Canem fellow. Their poems have been published in Callaloo, Virginia Quarterly Review, Academy of American Poets (Poem-A Day), and elsewhere. They are currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Houston and a Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast Journal.

Leisa Loan, Inprint Marion Barthelme Gulf Coast Prize Leisa Loan is a poet, editor, translator, and educator from Boston, MA.  She is pursuing a PhD in Critical Poetics at the University of Houston where she is an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow. She currently serves as the Digital Editor for Gulf Coast.

Reese Lopez, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction Reese Lopez is a writer and musician from Houston, Texas. He is currently an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Houston, where he is an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow and the winner of an Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction. He is currently at work on a novel.

Hadley Medlock, Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing at Rice University Hadley Medlock is a writer of nonfiction and poetry from small-town Arkansas. She is currently a senior at Rice University studying English & Creative Writing. Hadley also serves as the Arts and Entertainment Editor for Rice’s newspaper, The Thresher, and a nonfiction section editor for The Rice Review, a campus literary magazine. Hadley’s work tends to revolve around themes of environment, nature, home, place, and love, and she plans to continue this writing — no matter where she ends up after her impending graduation.

Kelan Nee, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction
Kelan Nee is a poet and carpenter from Massachusetts. He is the winner of prizes from The Academy of American Poets, Adroit, and the Inprint foundation. His work has been published by Poetry Magazine, 32 Poems, The Yale Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, and is pursuing a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston.

Bevin O’Connor, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry
Bevin O’Connor is a poet and educator from Southern California and received her MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the winner of the Prairie Lights Donald Justice Poetry Contest and the Michelle Boisseau Poetry Prize. Bevin has taught writing at the University of Iowa and the University of Southern California. A 2022 finalist for the Best of the Net Anthology, her work can be found or is forthcoming in Bear Review, Annulet, Palette Poetry, Afternoon Visitor, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Poetry at the University of Houston, where she is an Inprint Nina and Michael Zilkha Fellowship recipient and serves as a poetry editor for Gulf Coast magazine.

Biz Rasich, Inprint Joan & Stanford Alexander Prize in Fiction
Originally from Richmond, Virginia, Biz Rasich is an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow and MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Houston. Prior to starting her MFA, she earned her BA in Mathematical Economic Analysis from Rice University and spent several years at the University of Chicago working on press strategy and research for a book about gun violence. She currently serves as a fiction editor at Gulf Coast and a program associate at Writers in the Schools. Her work has previously appeared in R2, Prairie Margins, and Hayden’s Ferry Review.

Anthony Sutton, Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing Anthony Sutton resides on former Akokisas, Atakapa, Karankawa, and Sana land (currently named Houston, TX), as an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor fellow at the University of Houston’s Creative Writing and Literature PhD program and is a recipient of the 2024 Inprint Marion Barthelme prize in Creative Writing. The author of the poetry collection Particles of a Stranger Light (Veliz Books, 2023) and co-editor of Tom Postell: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Unsung Masters, 2024), Anthony’s poetry has appeared in guesthouse, Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Oversound, Texas Review, Zocalo Public Square, the anthology In the Tempered Dark: Contemporary Poets Transcending Elegy (Black Lawrence Press, 2024), and elsewhere.

Mathew Weitman, Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry
Mathew Weitman’s poetry appears or is forthcoming Bennington Review, The Georgia Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He is the winner of the Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry, the Loraine Williams Poetry Prize, the AWP Kurt Brown Prize in Poetry, and is a two time Pushcart nominee. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD at the University of Houston where he is an Inprint Brown Foundation Fellow and a poetry editor for Gulf Coast. He also teaches creative writing at the Harris County Jail.

Pritha Bhattacharyya, Inprint Joan and Stanford Alexander Prize in Fiction
Pritha Bhattacharyya is a Bengali-American writer. She is a fiction PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston, an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow, and winner of the 2023 Inprint Joan and Stanford Alexander Prize in Fiction. She received her MFA from Boston University, where she was awarded a Leslie Epstein Global Fellowship to travel to Osaka, Japan. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. She was a finalist for Glimmer Train‘s 2019 Short Story Award for New Writers. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Ecotone, Ninth Letter, Nashville Review, Bodega, and elsewhere.

Weijia Pan, Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry
Weijia Pan is a poet and translator from Shanghai, China. A winner of the 2023 Inprint Verlaine Prize in Poetry, he holds a BA in Comparative Literature from UCLA and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Houston. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming from AGNI, The Georgia Review, Copper Nickel, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. Weijia also translates contemporary Chinese poetry and is editing an anthology of poems about COVID-19.

Adele Elise Williams, Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing at the University of Houston
Adele Elise Williams is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston where she is an Inprint Nina and Michael Zilkha Fellow and serves as nonfiction editor for Gulf Coast. She is the winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing, and the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize for Poetry, as well as a finalist for the 2022 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Air/Light, The Georgia Review, Crazyhorse, Guernica, Cream City Review, The Florida Review, and elsewhere.

Ryan Bollenbach, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction
Ryan Bollenbach is a writer and musician living in Houston, Texas. He is the managing editor of Gulf Coast and formerly served as the poetry editor for Black Warrior Review. A recipient of the 2023 Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction, his prose has appeared in Mid-American Review, Booth, Knee-Jerk, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere.

Stephanie Pushaw, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction
Stephanie Pushaw grew up in Los Angeles and has since lived in Scotland, Montana, Australia, New Orleans, and Japan. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Montana, where she was the recipient of a Truman Capote Fellowship. Her award-winning essays and short stories have appeared in journals including Narrative, Joyland, The Masters Review, DIAGRAM, New Ohio Review, and Mississippi Review. Stephanie is currently a third year PhD candidate in fiction at the University of Houston and winner of the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction.

Layla Al-Bedawi, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Nonfiction
Layla Al-Bedawi is a writer of fiction, poetry, and hybrid strangelings, a language and writing instructor, community builder, occasional podcaster, and bookbinder (among other things). English is her third language, but she’s been dreaming in it for years. Born in Germany to Kurdish and Ukrainian parents, she moved to the US in 2006 and currently lives in the Houston, TX area. She is one of the founders of Fuente Collective, an organization that facilitates experimentation, collaboration, and hybridity in writing and other arts. Her work is published Wigleaf, Bayou Magazine, Winter Tangerine, Juked, Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Liminal Stories, Crab Fat Magazine, and elsewhere; it has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, IGNYTE Award, and Rhysling Award, and has been selected for the Best Small Fictions anthology.

Maha Ahmed, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry
Maha Ahmed is an Egyptian poet and translator. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and is currently an English & Creative Writing PhD candidate at the University of Houston specializing in Empire Studies. Her poetry and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Grist, The Adroit Journal, Rusted Radishes, The Recluse, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor for the Beirut-based literary magazine Rusted Radishes and the online nonfiction editor at Gulf Coast. 

Josh English, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry
Josh English grew up in a converted barn in the woods of northwest New Jersey. He received his MFA from the University of South Carolina and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Houston’s Literature and Creative Writing program where he is an Inprint C.Glenn Cambor Fellow and winner of the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry. He served as poetry editor of Gulf Coast and was the co-founding editor of the poetry outfit Oxidant|Engine. His manuscript has been a finalist for Alice James, Saturnalia, New Issues and elsewhere, and his poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Lana Turner Review, Bennington Review, Omniverse, West Branch and more. He lives in Houston with his wife and twin children.

Rosa Boshier González, Inprint Marion Barthelme Gulf Coast Prize
Rosa Boshier González is a writer and editor from Los Angeles. Her fiction, essays, and art criticism appear in Guernica, Catapult, Literary Hub, The New York Times, Artforum, Hyperallergic, The Rumpus, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Gulf Coast and is a recent recipient of the Inprint Marion Barthelme Gulf Coast Prize.

Aris Kian, Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing at University of Houston
Aris Kian is a Houston enthusiast and a student of abolition. Her poems are published with The West Review, Obsidian Lit, Write About Now, and elsewhere. She engages with the socio-mythological landscape of the metropolitan city in her poems and hates taking the 610 West Loop. She ranks #10 in the 2020 Women of the World Poetry Slam and is the 2022 recipient of the Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing.

Colton Alstatt, Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing at Rice University
Colton Alstatt is a student writer who concerns themself with the intersection between humor and suffering in the Internet age. Colton believes the goal of literature is to provide readers with knowing company by mirroring the experience of being alive in odd or unexpected ways. Colton also serves as Editor-in-Chief of R2: The Rice Review and External Vice President of the Rice Music Collective (RMUC).

Madeleine Maillet, Inprint Joan and Stanford Alexander Prize in Fiction
Madeleine Maillet is a writer, translator, editor and French Canadian. Her stories have been published in a number of journals and anthologized in Best Canadian Short Stories 2020, and The Journey Prize Stories 27 (the Writer’s Trust award for the best short story published in a Canadian literary magazine). She is a Ph.D. Candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston where she holds the Inprint Brown Fellowship. She is a fellow of the Canada Council of the Arts (2020-2021) and has held fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Canada Millennium Foundation, and the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto.

Joy Priest, Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry
Joy Priest is the author of Horsepower (Pitt Poetry Series, 2020), selected as the winner of the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry by U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. She is the recipient of a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a 2019-2020 Fine Arts Work Center fellowship, and the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from the American Poetry Review. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, The Atlantic, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among others, as well as in commissions for the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (MFAH) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Her essays have appeared in The Bitter Southerner, Poets & Writers, and ESPN. She is currently an Inprint MD Anderson Foundation Fellow and a doctoral student at the University of Houston.

Pritha Bhattacharyya, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction
Pritha Bhattacharyya is a Bengali-American writer. She is a fiction PhD candidate and Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston. She received her MFA from Boston University, where she was awarded a Leslie Epstein Global Fellowship to travel to Osaka, Japan. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. She was a finalist for Glimmer Train‘s 2019 Short Story Award for New Writers. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Ecotone, Ninth Letter, Nashville Review, Bodega, and elsewhere.

Tayyba Maya Kanwal, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction
Tayyba Maya Kanwal is a Pakistani-American writer from Houston, TX. Her work appears in Witness Magazine, Meridian, Juxtaprose, Quarterly West and other journals, has been anthologized by The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is a 2022 Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction winner, Witness Magazine 2022 Literary Awards runner-up and CRAFT 2021 Fiction Elements Contest finalist. Maya is Fiction Editor at Gulf Coast Journal and an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow. She holds an MS in Mathematics from the University of Oregon and is a candidate for an MFA in Fiction at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. She is completing a linked short story collection set in the Pakistani Muslim diaspora, and is also working on a novel.

Daniel Kennedy, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Nonfiction
Daniel Kennedy grew up in rural Pennsylvania. He graduated from Boston University with a BA in English and was a member of BU’s Division 1 wrestling team. He holds an MFA from Virginia Tech, where he won the Emily Morrison Prize in Fiction. His writing has appeared in New England Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Arts & Letters, The Madison Review, and elsewhere. He previously served as an assistant fiction editor for Gulf Coast and managing editor for the minnesota review. He was awarded the 2022 Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Nonfiction and is currently a PhD candidate in the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program. He’s working on his first novel.

Adele Elise Williams, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry
Adele Elise Williams is a writer, editor, and educator pursuing her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston where she is a Nina and Michael Zilkha fellow. She is the winner of the 2022 Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry and the 2019 Emily Morrison Prize in Poetry. Adele has also been awarded fellowships from UCROSS, Hindman Settlement School, and Muse Writing Center. As the nonfiction editor for Gulf Coast and a past editor for Noemi Press and the minnesota review, her writing has appeared in The Florida Review, Cream City Review, Split Lip, Guernica, Beloit Poetry Journal, among others. All the rest at adeleelisewilliams.com.

Blaine Prescott, Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry
Blaine Prescott holds degrees from Western Kentucky University, Auburn University, and the University of Oregon—where he earned his MFA in fiction. He is currently a PhD candidate in literature and creative writing at the University of Houston, and his work has appeared in Story, Ninth Letter, Shenandoah, and Notre Dame Review. He is from Kentucky.

Emelie Griffin, Inprint Marion Barthelme Gulf Coast Prize
Emelie Griffin is a doctoral student at the University of Houston and the managing editor for Gulf Coast. She holds an MFA from Syracuse University. Her poetry has appeared in Pleiades, New England Review, American Chordata, and other journals.