2026 Microgrant Recipients Announced!

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! 

Catalina Marie Cantú will use the grant to support travel to Portugal where Cantú will teach two poetry classes at a retreat for women of Madeiran heritage, then travel to Óbidos, Portugal, a sister UNESCO City of Literature to meet and collaborate with Óbidos poets and writers. Cantú hopes to build multilingual bridges in Portuguese and English that explore and celebrate Madeiran and Portuguese gastronomy, handcrafts and sensory imagery in the natural world. 

Vanessa Freije will undertake a major revision of “Dry Spells,” her literary novel set between Mexico City and the foothills of the stratovolcano, Popocatéptl. Freije plans to return to Amecameca, located two hours southeast of Mexico City, to conduct additional research on the book’s setting and context. 

Kriss Jackson-Harper will use the grant to support The Posi Pos Media Lab: Trans Joy & Black Queer Survivor Storytelling Hub, a project that includes writing, digital storytelling, outreach, and community-facing materials centered on Black trans joy, Black queer survivor narratives, and international literary exchange with writers in Accra, Ghana.

Julie Kang’s project “Han: Stories Across the Pacific,” explores how bilingual and bicultural writers navigate the emotional and cultural landscapes between languages and homelands. The project will gather and amplify stories from writers in Seattle and partner city Seoul, through collaborative writing sessions, bilingual readings, and digital storytelling exchanges. Ultimately, “Han: Stories Across the Pacific” envisions Seattle as a bridge city: a place where bilingual voices are not only heard but celebrated as vital to the city’s international literary identity.

Shuxuan Zhou’s grant will support Zhou’s Chinese book tour in June 2026, celebrating the publication of《木头换来的人》(“The People Who Traded Wood For…”). Zhou’s tour in China will include a stop in Nanjing, a sister UNESCO City of Literature.《木头换来的人》(“The People Who Traded Wood For…”) presents 16 intertwined life histories across different political eras, based on oral histories with former workers in a sawmill where Zhou grew up.

Thank you to everyone who applied and congratulations to the 2026 recipients.

The 2026 Microgrants Program is made possible by the generous support of 4Culture, Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, and the Amazon Literary Partnership.

Community Spotlight: Rod Driver, Comics Artist and 2025 Microgrant Winner

Rod Driver stands in front of his show at Fantagraphics, in Seattle.

Rod Driver is a Seattle comics artist, an inspiring international community builder, and one of our very first Microgrant award winners last year. We checked in with him this month to hear more about how his international arts endeavors are going.

Jennie Shortridge: Congratulations on winning a Seattle City of Lit Microgrant award, Rod! Can you describe the project you applied for, and how you’re using your Microgrant?

Rod Driver: I’m supplementing an artist exchange I’m funding between Indonesian and American cartoonists. This year I invited Yudha Sandy and Danang Catur, two accomplished artists who organize the Yogyakarta Komik Weeks festival, to come as special guests of Short Run Comix Fest. I interviewed them at Short Run, they did live readings and music performance, and we did a workshop in partnership with Capitol Hill Tool library where we made wooden decorations for the Short Run venue. We also sent Danang and Sandy original art from the other Short Run guest artists, and they had a special Short Run gallery space at this year’s Yogyakarta Komik Weeks!

JS: Wow, what an opportunity for so many artists! How did you originally get involved with the Indonesian artists community?

RD: In 2019 I won a Watson Fellowship, an amazing opportunity for self-directed international study. My project was to study cartoonist communities. Some people in my network pointed me toward Australia and Germany as project countries.

Rod Driver interviews Yudha Sandy and Danang Catur at Short Run Comix Festival, November 2025.

While I was doing recon into German comics, I stumbled upon the Goethe Institute website spotlighting Indonesian comics. The history and variety of work seemed really interesting, so I cold-emailed the project director, Dewi Noviami, and the rest was history.
I used the fellowship to travel to Indonesia. Dewi introduced me to Beng Rahadian, a graphic art professor who became a foundational source for me. It branched out from there, and I became invested in the research I was doing in Indonesia to the point that it became the sole subject of the graphic novel I was writing about cartoonist communities! That book became Komik-Komik Sama-Sama: Adventures in Indonesian Art and Liberation, which I finished in October 2024.

I was only able to complete half my research trip in Indonesia before the early days of Covid lockdown happened. So by 2024 I was like, OK, I’ve been holed up writing comics for four years, and I still have half of this huge grant. I’m gonna do something with that money that keeps the spirit of exchange going and gets me more involved in the communities that I’ve participated in and written about.  I decided to share my good fortune with other cartoonists, so I started this project.

JS: That’s a generous and inspiring way to use your Microgrant, Rod. Tell us more about your time with Danang and Sandy at Short Run.

RD: Danang and Sandy are both incredible people-connectors, and I got to bask in that glow. I made a bunch of new friends in town because so many people came out of the woodwork to meet them. It’s hard to sum up their trip because there was just so much pleasure and fun. They played live at the Short Run opening party as their band Los Fungos, and Sandy made a tiny lyric zine that I passed out to the crowd to encourage them to try to sing along in Indonesian. I introduced them to Halloween and we carved jack-o-lanterns. They introduced me to an Indonesian ramen dish called Internet (‘Indomie’ instant noodles + telur (egg) + ‘Coronet’ canned corner beef) that we dressed up with wild local mushrooms gifted to us by a kindly restaurant owner we met at a dive bar.  I loved seeing the books that they brought to distribute for their colleagues back in Yogyakarta. I was totally hyping up their table at the festival - who wouldn’t want some incredible, limited edition Indonesian comics?

One of my own acquisitions was They Murdered Munir!!, a graphic novel illustrated by artist/lecturer Terra Bajraghosa (with writer Eko Prasetyo) with a new English translation by art archivist and organizer Sukma Smita. An indictment of the human rights abuses of the Suharto dictatorship, it was written contemporaneously but held on ice until its publication several years after the end of the regime. Munir also tied into conversations I was having with Sandy and Danang about current events in Indonesia and the US. It’s such a potent and fascinating document that I’d wanted to get my hands on for a long time, especially since Terra and Sukma are both friends of mine who were totally foundational to my own book. 

Danang and Sandy have also expressed a strong desire for more Short Run artists to come present at Komik Weeks, so next year I’m hoping to visit their festival, Yogyakarta Komik Weeks, and bring two other local Northwest cartoonists. 

I definitely recommend finding Danang and Sandy on social media - @caturdanang, @yudhasandyyy, and @mulyakarya_yk (their art organizing collective). Sandy in particular posted tons of cool videos documenting their visit. 

Rod and Danang pose with artwork they made for the Short Run festival.

JS: You’ve created such rich and meaningful connections with this project, Rod. So, what brought you to this art form? What made you want to create comics?

RD: I’ve always drawn, and I’ve always read comics. My most formative comic book was Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe, which I read when I was about nine. That’s what made me want to do nonfiction comics.

JS: And what are your personal goals for the work you create?

RD: For a long time, my main goal was to inspire people to dive into new subjects and convey a sense of wonder. I think I’m generally good at that - Komik-Komik Sama-Sama is the most recent example - but my new goal is to write more personally and vulnerably. The closest I’ve gotten so far is my latest self-deprecating diary gag comics Chicago Diary and Tiny Crap Drawer. 

JS: As we near the end of the year, tell us what’s coming up for you in 2026.

RD: I’m looking forward to continuing the artist exchange and hopefully getting a couple of colleagues together for an Indonesia trip next year. You can check out @yarndollcomics for updates and new comics. 

JS: Thanks so much, Rod, for all you do. We wish you continued success and connection in the new year!

Learn more about Rod’s work at his website.

International Residency Opportunities

Dreaming of finishing your writing project in 2026? Why not apply for an international residency?

Barcelona just launched the call for applications to their writing residency for 2026. The programme offers creative stays for international authors and translators with literary projects connected to the city.
Eligible applicants include authors of fiction, poetry, playwriting, comics, literary journalism, and audiovisual scripts, as well as translators with at least one published or premiered work. The projects must have an explicit link to Barcelona, which will be assessed alongside the applicant’s career and the literary quality of the proposal. Applications should be submitted no later than January 16th. Find more information here.

Ljubljana, a UNESCO City of Literature since 2015, offers two one-month residencies for writers at the Švicarija/Swisshouse Creative Centre, which is part of the International Centre of Graphic Arts. The residency periods are April 1–30, 2026, and November 1–30, 2026. The residency is aimed at foreign published writers from other UNESCO Cities of Literature. The applicant must have published at least one book of fiction (be it prose, poetry or drama) in their language. There are no restrictions regarding age, race, gender, nationality or other personal/aesthetic preferences. Though writers of all genres are currently welcome to apply, a specific focus might be chosen for calls in the following years.

Deadline for submissions: January 19, 2026. Registration form, information and requirements are here.

Congratulations to the New Cities of Literature!

Today UNESCO has announced the designation of 58 new Creative Cities in total across eight art forms to join its Creative Cities Network, making for a total of 408 Creative Cities from more than 100 countries worldwide.

Among these new Creative Cities, ten have been designated in Literature: Aberystwyth (Wales); Abuja (Nigeria); Celje (Slovenia); Conakry (Guinea); Dumaguete City (Philippines); Gdańsk (Poland); Kahramanmaraş (Türkiye); Lund (Sweden); San Luis Potosi (Mexico); and Tangier (Morocco). The UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature extend their congratulations and a warm welcome to their new sibling Cities and look forward to collaborating to promote the power of literature for sustainable and inclusive societies.

Kjartan Már Ómarsson, Program Manager of Reykjavík UNESCO City of Literature and Creative Cities of Literature Network Lead says:

“We warmly welcome the new Cities of Literature to our global network. Their creativity, diversity, and commitment to the written word will strengthen our collective mission to place culture and storytelling at the heart of sustainable and inclusive urban development.”

Apply Now for Our Microgrants 2026 Program!

The popular Microgrants program is back. Seattle City of Literature is awarding $10,000 in microgrants to Seattle-area literary projects and programs with active participation from another country.
New this year: we are awarding microgrants of $1,000 each to FIVE individual artists and microgrants of $2,500 to TWO organizations.

Learn more here.