Seattle City of Literature is thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2026 Microgrants Program. This funding provides two organizations with $2,500 each and five individual literary artists with $1,000 each to support international literary endeavors in the city of Seattle.
The organizations selected are LitiArts and Mothers Impacting Lives Everyday (MILE)!
LitiArts’ grant will support the production of “Identity Journal Volume 2: Transnational & Immigrant & Multilingual Youth Voice,” a digital publication emerging from a series of storytelling and creative literacy workshops. Aligned with LitiArts’ mission to center the voices of BIPOC youth and foster global narratives of identity and diaspora, this project aims to promote cross-cultural understanding, amplify immigrant perspectives, and strengthen Seattle’s international artist community. It also aims to establish sustainable pathways for youth authorship and leadership in the long term.
MILE’s grant will go toward, “Letters to My Ancestors,” a cross-continental storytelling and healing project led by author and advocate Kechi Amaefule. A collaboration between MILE’s OvercomHerMentoring (Seattle) and Womb to World Care (Nigeria) programs, this initiative will connect 10 girls in King County and 10 girls in Owerri, Nigeria, through a five-week literary exchange exploring heritage, identity, and healing through the written word.
The individuals selected are: Catalina Cantú, Vanessa Freije, Kriss Jackson-Harper, Julie Kang, and Shuxuan Zhou!
About the Microgrant Winners
Rod R. Driver
Born in Seattle and raised on zine culture, Rod Driver is your average white transexual nonfiction cartoonist. He has a BA in Studio Art from Reed College, where he made minicomics galore and submitted a graphic thesis about the 14 dams of the Columbia River. Upon graduation in 2019, Rod received a highly competitive $36,000 Thomas J. Watson fellowship to study community arts organizing around the world. This culminated in his 2024 graphic novel Komik-Komik Sama-Sama: Adventures in Indonesian Art and Liberation and a six-stop Indonesian book tour. Rod is using the remaining quarter of his Watson funds to support artistic exchanges between Seattle and Southeast Asia, with supplemental programming funding from the Seattle City of Literature microgrant. He is grateful to all his friends and collaborators who helped bring Komik-Komik Sama-Sama to life, and looks forward to his future collaborations. He lives in Seattle with his sweetie. You can find him at yarndollcomics.com.
Elyse Hauser
Elyse Hauser is a writer from the Seattle area with an MFA from the University of New Orleans. She writes environmental nonfiction and near-future science fiction: two genres that often sound remarkably alike these days. Elyse has learned from organizations including Bergen’s Center for Investigative Journalism and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference. Her work has also been supported by Seattle’s Jack Straw Cultural Center and the Fund for Investigative Journalism, among others. You can find more about her at elysehauser.com, and read her deep sea newsletter at notesfromthedeep.substack.com.
Liubov (Luba) Uzik
Luba is originally from Kyiv, Ukraine. She moved to the U.S. in 2015 and now lives in Bothell. She holds a degree from Lake Washington Institute of Technology, where she studied Applied Science in Design and User Experience. As a dedicated volunteer and community advocate with a talent for connecting people through meaningful projects and storytelling, she transforms ideas into impactful initiatives that foster collaboration and celebrate culture. In 2023, Luba founded the Lovage Book Club (Книжковий Клуб Любисток), a community-driven initiative dedicated to celebrating Ukrainian literature and fostering meaningful connections among readers in the Greater Seattle Area. Since its creation, the Lovage Book Club has become a cornerstone of the Ukrainian-American literary scene in the region.
Jeanine Walker
Selected in June 2021 for a City of Literature writing fellowship in Wonju, Korea, Jeanine Walker has been recognized with grants from Artist Trust, Imprint, and the Jack Straw Cultural Center. Selected co-translations, with Sanskrit scholar Shim Jaekwan, from Ahn Joo Cheol's Things to Do in the Next Life (Changbi, 2015) have been featured in Poetry, The Offing, Poetry Northwest, and Poet Lore. Jeanine's full-length poetry collection is The Two of Them Might Outlast Me (Groundhog Poetry Press, 2022), and her poems have found homes in Denver Quarterly, swamp pink, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. She teaches poetry in Seattle.
Generous Press
Generous Press, founded by Elaina Ellis and Amber Flame, publishes lush, high-caliber romance novels and other stories centering LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and disabled love. We are co-creating a world in which all people feel cherished and free. Generous Press is on Instagram at @generouspress, website www.generous.press
Project Supporters
Thank you to 4Culture and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture for their support of this program.
