The 2025 Get the Word Out fiction fellows, pictured, from top left:
Hillary Behrman, Denise Derya Brandt, Kim Coleman Foote, Sophia Huneycutt, Rachel León,
Kat Lewis, Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, Radhika Singh, Grace Spulak, and Diana Xin.
New York, NY—September 3, 2025—Poets & Writers today announced the ten writers selected for the upcoming fiction cohort of Get the Word Out, a publicity incubator designed to help early career authors maximize the exposure of their forthcoming books.
Over the next few months, these ten fiction writers—each of whom has a first or second book slated for publication in the coming year—will receive expert guidance and peer support designed to optimize the launch of their forthcoming titles. Through a series of online seminars mentored by publicist May-Zhee Lim, they will develop personalized strategies to harness the opportunities presented by the publication of their books. Additional sessions with leading literary industry professionals will further equip participants with practical tools and professional connections.
“Publishing a book is such an important moment in an author’s career, and one that requires them to rapidly shift gears from creating to promoting their work,” said Jared Jackson, Poets & Writers’ director of programs and partnerships. “Get the Word Out helps authors navigate this challenging transition by equipping them with the skills and contacts they need to meet the moment with energy and creativity.”
Launched in 2022, Get the Word Out builds on Poets & Writers’ decades-long history of providing practical guidance about the business of writing. The program aims to reduce barriers to success for writers from historically marginalized communities, including BIPOC and LGBTQ+ writers, as well as those from outside of New York City and those whose books are published by independent presses. The application window for the next cycle of early career poets will open in December. For more information, visit at.pw.org/GTWO.
2025 FICTION FELLOWS
Hillary Behrman’s award-winning stories have been published in journals, magazines, short story dispensers, and anthologies. Her debut collection of stories, Lake Effect, is forthcoming from Sarabande Books in May 2026 and was chosen as winner of Sarabande’s 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction by Lauren Groff—who praised it as a book of “great moral power and heart” by “an author of extraordinary grace.” Behrman lives in Seattle where she has worked as a children’s civil rights attorney and public defender.
Denise Derya Brandt worked twenty-plus years in international development, leading women’s health projects in Afghanistan, Liberia, and Myanmar, before pursuing her writing career. A Book Incubator graduate and 2024 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Rising Star Award finalist, she holds degrees from Arizona State University and the London School of Economics. A Turkish-American with Turkish language skills that can fool tourists but not taxi drivers, she is originally from Arizona and now lives in Northern Kentucky. Her debut novel, Istanbul Dreaming, is forthcoming from She Writes Press in 2026.
Kim Coleman Foote is the author of Coleman Hill (SJP Lit, 2024), a novel that blends fact and fiction about her family’s Great Migration journey to suburban New Jersey, where she grew up. The novel was a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize and NAACP Image Award, among others, and was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Additional honors include residencies at Hedgebrook, Yaddo, and MacDowell, literature fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Kimbilio, and a Fulbright grant to Ghana, where Foote conducted fieldwork for her second novel, Salt Water Sister. Forthcoming from SJP Lit in 2026, the novel explores the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its repercussions in the 1700s and present day.
Sophia Huneycutt’s novel, The House Built on Alligator Bones, is forthcoming from Dutton in 2026. She has received creative and financial support from Tin House, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the de Groot Foundation, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Ohio Arts Council. Her short fiction has won the Porch Prize, judged by Kevin Wilson, and appears in or is forthcoming from Story Magazine, Nashville Review, the Greensboro Review, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and elsewhere. She holds a BA in English Literature from Davidson College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Ohio State University.
Rachel León (she/they) is a writer, editor, and social worker. She serves as managing director for Chicago Review of Books and is the editor of The Rockford Anthology, forthcoming from Belt Publishing in October 2025. Her debut novel, How We See the Gray, will be published by Curbstone Books in 2026.
Kat Lewis is a fiction writer and video game narrative designer based in Tampa. She is the founder of Craft with Kat, a best-selling Substack newsletter with practical craft lessons for writers. Her debut novel, Good People, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in 2026.
Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, who goes by “Raj,” originally trained as a scientist. After earning a PhD, she launched a career in science communications. For nearly two decades, she worked as a science storyteller in various forms, including as a journalist and the leader of an award-winning custom content studio. Now an association executive, she keeps the storytelling flame burning by writing creative nonfiction and fiction in her personal time. Her debut novel, Chitra Demands to Go Home, is forthcoming from Modern Artist Press in 2026.
Radhika Singh is a writer and editor living in Queens, New York. Her fiction speculates on the presence of magic in this world, the connection to spirit and consciousness, and the power of the people to organize for collective liberation. Her debut novel, Earthly Playing Field, is forthcoming from Common Notions in 2026. Her first-written novel, Weirdly Tuned Antennae, received the 2025 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize and will be published by FC2 Press in 2026.
Grace Spulak is the author of the short story collection Magdalena is Brighter Than You Think, winner of the 2025 Autumn House Press Rising Writer Prize in Fiction and forthcoming from Autumn House Press in 2026. Her work has been awarded Witness Magazine’s 2021 Literary Award in Fiction and has appeared in the Ploughshares Blog, Witness Magazine, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. Based in New Mexico, she holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College.
Diana Xin’s debut collection of short stories, Book of Exemplary Women, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in December 2025. Her work appears in Electric Literature, Narrative Magazine, Gulf Coast, the Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She studied creative writing at the University of Montana and is a recipient of residencies from Hedgebrook, the M Literary Residency in Beijing, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. Born in the Hebei province of China and raised in the American Midwest, she currently lives in Seattle, Washington.
ABOUT POETS & WRITERS
Founded in 1970, Poets & Writers has been the primary source of trustworthy information, professional guidance, support, and inspiration for writers for fifty-five years. Our work is rooted in the belief that literature is vital to sustaining a vibrant culture, and we focus on nurturing literature’s source: creative writers. Our mission is to foster the professional development of poets and writers, to promote communication throughout the literary community, and to help create an environment in which literature can be appreciated by the widest possible public.
We advance this mission through our flagship publication, Poets & Writers Magazine; pw.org, a website that offers writers information, inspiration, and a lively online community; and programs that provide professional development opportunities, financial support, and validation for writers. We sponsor the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award and the Jackson Poetry Prize. Our work is guided by our core values: service, inclusivity, integrity, and excellence, and by our commitment to becoming an antiracist organization. Learn more at pw.org.
Contact:
Rachel Schuder
Director of Development & Communications
rschuder@pw.org
212-226-3568 x201