Meet the 2025-2026 Emerging Writer Fellows: Chris Deng, Charlinda Adream Banks, and Kara Urion. Every year, GrubStreet awards the Emerging Writer Fellowship to three talented writers who demonstrate a passion and commitment to their writing. We could not be more excited to congratulate and welcome Chris, Charlinda, and Kara!
Chris Deng (she/they) is a writer and teaching artist from New York City. She’s the author of A Journey Ahead, a self-published collection of bilingual, oral histories from elders residing in Chinatown, Manhattan. She’s worked with folks at Magnum Foundation, the W.O.W. Project, Chinatown Art Brigade, and more to hold and archive stories of grief, collective memory, and resistance. Mediums they dream in are fiction, archives, and oil paint. You can find her at @heycdeng or chrisdeng.com.
What does being selected for this fellowship mean to you?
I’m honored to join a community of writers rigorous on creating work from the margins and writing for their audiences – without qualifying their context. GrubStreet’s commitment to dismantle industry barriers to meet storytellers where they are, means so much to me as a queer, Asian-American writer whose goal is to get as close to the emotional truth as possible. I look forward to the space and support to honor my own narratives and cultivate my craft as a writer this fellowship year!
Charlinda Adream Banks is a writer and arts administrator based in Boston, MA. She graduated from Brown University in 2024 with a B.A. in Literary Arts and a B.A. in International Affairs. Charlinda writes poetry, fiction, and occasional creative essays that explore family, gender, and ghosts. Black American and Afro-Cuban culture are at the crux of the narratives and characters she creates. Her work has appeared in Ebony Tomatoes Collective, AC|DC, and elsewhere.
What does being selected for this fellowship mean to you?
Being selected as an Emerging Writer Fellow has been the highlight of my year so far. It’s an
incredibly affirming and door-opening opportunity, and I’m thrilled to be part of GrubStreet’s vibrant writing community. To me, the fellowship represents new possibilities for connection with artists from diverse backgrounds, and access to resources and mentorship that will help strengthen my creative voice. In the year ahead, I’m excited to explore the intersections of historical and literary fiction while diving deeper into Boston’s creative writing scene.
Kara grew up in the Boston area and spent the majority of the last two decades in Oakland, CA, with stints in New York and on an island off the coast of Maine. She has worked as an educator at Rikers Island and San Quentin State Prison, was the accessibility specialist and a visiting faculty member at the San Francisco Art Institute, has worked in Spanish/English interpreting and translation, and has spent many years in the restaurant industry. Her fiction is concerned with themes of memory, belonging, mental illness, addiction, and climate witness. You can find her in the water.
What does being selected for this fellowship mean to you?
Being selected for this fellowship is an invitation to step more fully into my writing practice and my identity as a writer. It is recognition of the work I have done and a belief in the work I will do. While the act of sitting down to write may be a solitary one, my writing practice as a whole would be impossible to sustain without deep community engagement, exchange, and investment. It is meaningful to receive support for my work from this particular organization whose values – rigorous artistic practice and instruction, with an explicit focus on access and diverse community – align with my own. GrubStreet has been an important literary home for me for the past several years, and I am eager to continue fostering and growing connections with other emerging and more established writers during this fellowship year and beyond.