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Home > Monica Macansantos

Monica Macansantos [1]

Listed as: 
Fiction Writer, Creative Nonfiction Writer
Public address: 
Philippines
PH
Email: 
m.macansantos@utexas.edu
Bio: 

Monica Macansantos is the author of the essay collection, Returning to My Father's Kitchen, to be published by Northwestern University Press in Spring 2025, as well as the story collection, Love and Other Rituals, published by Grattan Street Press in 2022. She is a 2024-25 Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute, University of Nevada Las Vegas, and was recently named a 2025 Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellow at the Carson McCullers Center in Columbus, Georgia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, The Hopkins Review, Bennington Review, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, River Styx, and Katherine Mansfield and Children (Edinburgh University Press), among other places. Her fiction has been recognized with finalist and honorable mention citations in the Glimmer Train Fiction Open, and her nonfiction has been named Notable in the Best American Essays 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2016. She has been awarded residencies at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Hedgebrook, Storyknife Writers Retreat, the I-Park Foundation, and Monson Arts. She was a James A. Michener Fellow for Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her MFA in Fiction and Poetry, and also holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the Victoria University of Wellington, where she held a Doctoral Scholarship.

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
In which languages are you fluent?: 
English
Filipino/Tagalog
Twitter/X: 
@missmacansantos
Born in: 
Baguio
Philippines
Raised in: 
Baguio
Philippines
Website: 
https://monicamacansantos.com [2]
Prizes won: 

Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellowship, Carson McCullers Center, Columbus, GA (Fall 2025), Shearing Fellowship, Black Mountain Institute, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (2024-2025), James A. Michener Fellowship, Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas at Austin (2010-2013), Victoria Doctoral Scholarship, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (2015-2018), Writing Residency Award, Monson Arts (Fall 2023), Writing Residency Award, Storyknife Writers Retreat (September 2022), Writing Residency Award, I-Park Foundation (October 28-November 22, 2021), Writing Residency Award, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts (April-May, 2019), Writing Residency Award, Hedgebrook (March-April, 2014), Writing Residency Award, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts (June-July, 2012), Love of Learning Award, Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (2019), Notable Essay, Best American Essays 2023 for the essay, "My Father and W. B. Yeats," Notable Essay, Best American Essays 2022 for "A Shared Stillness," Notable Essay, Best American Essays 2021 for "Returning To My Father's Kitchen" (credited in Best American Essays 2022, in an additional list for 2021), Notable Essay, Best American Essays 2016 for "Becoming A Writer: The Silences We Write Against," Finalist, Glimmer Train Fiction Open, July/August 2016 for the short story, "Leaving Auckland," Honorable Mention, Glimmer Train Fiction Open, December 2013 for the short story, "Stopover"

Education: 
University of Texas, James A. Michener Center for Writers
Writers Retreats: 
Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts
Storyknife Writers Retreat
Identifies as: 
Filipino
Southeast Asian
Prefers to work with: 
Any

Source URL:https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/monica_macansantos

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/monica_macansantos [2] https://monicamacansantos.com