May 22, 2025
The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil 2024-2025 Emerging Writer Fellows came together to share their published writing and works in progress at their first reading together as a cohort. The 2025 fellows are Amanda Ajamfar, Alex Barnett, Jon Elofson, Sophie Kalkreuth, MJ Kaufman, Karthik Raman, Sheena Daree Romero, Clare Shearer, and Ang Xu.
The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowships annually provide a diverse group of nine early-career, New York City-based writers with financial support; professional and creative development; monthly dinners with eminent editors, agents, and authors; access to The Center’s Writers Studio; public readings in our performance space; and ongoing support in establishing their literary careers.
The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellowship is supported in part by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Amazon Literary Partnership, Hawthornden Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Penguin Random House, Principal Foundation, Stuart S. Applebaum Giving Foundation Tiger Baron Foundation, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and contributors to The Center for Fiction / Susan Kamil Award for Emerging Writers.
Featuring
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Amanda Ajamfar
Amanda Ajamfar
Amanda is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her short stories have appeared in the Colorado Review, the Georgia Review, the Southern Review, and McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. She is currently working on her first novel.
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Alex Barnett
Alex Barnett
Alex is a Brooklyn-based writer, researcher, and filmmaker. He is originally from Philadelphia. He holds a BA in film production and creative writing from Northwestern University and an MA in intermediality from University of Edinburgh.
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Jon Elofson
Jon Elofson
Jon holds a BS from Brown University and an MFA in fiction from University of North Carolina Wilmington. His work has appeared in Electric Literature, Hayden’s Ferry Review, the Southeast Review, and Pleiades. In 2021, he won an AWP Intro Journals Award. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his hound dog, Goose.
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Sophie Kalkreuth
Sophie Kalkreuth
Sophie is a Brooklyn-based writer and journalist, and former Editor-in-Chief of LP magazine in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Her fiction and criticism have been featured in the Shanghai Literary Review and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is currently at work on her first novel.
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MJ Kaufman
MJ Kaufman
MJ is a playwright who started writing fiction during the pandemic. Their plays have been produced around the country as well as in Russia and Australia. Their fiction has been published in Catapult and they were a 2023 Tin House Fiction Scholar.
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Karthik Raman
Karthik Raman
Karthik grew up in Mansfield, Ohio and now lives in Brooklyn with an Empress Tree. Currently at work on his first novel, he writes fiction about the slippery nature of homelands and dreamscapes and their chaotic, intertwined forces through speculative fiction and family narrative.
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Sheena Daree Romero
Sheena Daree Romero
Sheena is a humorist and doodler. Her words have been published in Taco Bell Quarterly and granted the Miriam Chaikin Prose Award. She’s working on an unhinged campus novel about competition, sabotage, justice, and a queer black lady who moves to the wrong place—Vermont.
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Clare Shearer
Clare Shearer
Clare Shearer is a writer living in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and been supported by the Anderson Center. She has an MFA from the University of Idaho and works in publishing.
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Ang Xu
Ang Xu
Ang is a writer from Beijing. She has received an MFA from Columbia University, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of Columbia Journal. Her work is published or forthcoming in the Chicago Review and Action, Spectacle.
