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.