The Sun Valley Writers’ Conference is committed to supporting aspiring writers and providing them with inspiration and direction as they embark on their creative paths. In 2023, we expanded our Writing Fellows Program to include talented young writers from programs around the nation. These have included the IOWA WRITERS’ WORKSHOP, WRITEGIRL LA, the INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS, BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY’s Creative Writing MFA Program, and more.

We are excited to announce our group of 2026 Writing Fellows, who will be joining us to soak up all there is to learn at the 2026 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference.

HARRIET BRADLEY

Harriet Bradley is an MFA Fiction candidate at Temple University and previously read History at the University of Oxford. Her work has been featured in Five on the Fifth and on the ONCE Fiction podcast. Originally from the U.K., she now lives in Philadelphia, PA, with her family.

ZUNI CHOPRA

Zuni Chopra is the author of four published works, including her debut novel The House That Spoke. She is a recent graduate of Stanford University with an Honors in the Arts and is currently pursuing an MFA through NYU. Chopra has worked across industries and mediums—including video games, film, and publishing—and is excited to continue evolving as an artist.

ASHLEY HAND

Ashley Hand is a service academy graduate and former military officer who spent her twenties working as an aircraft logistician, deploying to Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. She holds an MFA from Cornell University, where she was also a lecturer in the humanities, and was selected as a 2022-2024 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, Five Points, and elsewhere. Hand’s debut novel Land of Enchantment is forthcoming with Scribner.

Ashley Hand’s Fellowship is in honor of Bill and Reva Tooley from Tim and Sarah Cavanaugh.

MICHELLE PHÚÓNG HÔ (pictured)

Michelle Phúóng Hô is the author of Bone Symphony, forthcoming from BOA Editions in Fall 2026, which was chosen by Aracelis Girmay as a Boa Editions Blessing the Boats Selection. Her work appears in Nat Brut, The Offing, Poetry, and elsewhere. Hô’s honors include: a Pushcart nomination, a Friends of Literature Award from Poetry magazine, and a Ninth Letter Literary Award. She received her MFA in poetry from NYU. Born to Vietnamese refugees, she lives in New Haven, CT, where she teaches poetry in university classrooms, community book spaces, and living rooms.

MAYA KING

Maya King is a writer and journalist whose work focuses on the intersection of politics and religion in New York City. She is a reporter for The New York Times at the Metro desk where she writes about religion and ritual. Her work has also appeared in POLITICO, NPR, and USA Today. King graduated from the Cathy Hughes School of Communications at Howard University in 2019. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

JOPLIN MORGAN

Joplin Morgan is a writer and educator from Idaho, where he lives with his wife and his pet rabbit. Morgan’s experiences animate his work with working-class prosodies, anarchic lyricism, and a reverence for wide vistas. His work has appeared in Rabbit Catastrophe, Hot Metal Bridge, Paper Plane Press, and elsewhere. He has been featured at the literary events Death Rattle Writers Fest, Treefort, and the Bloom Reading Series. In 2024, Morgan was awarded the Glenn Balch Prize for Creative Nonfiction. He is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Boise State University where he works as a teacher and graduate writing consultant.

EVANGELINA OPOKU-NYARKO

Evangelina Opoku-Nyarko is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Temple University where she also works as a Resident Director. She was a 2021 Author Fellow at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and her work has appeared in Brittle Paper. Opoku-Nyarko’s debut novel-in-progress was longlisted for the 2023 Cinnamon Press Literature Prize.

JESÚS RODRÍGUEZ

Jesús Rodríguez is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He has covered politics, power, and culture for The Washington Post and POLITICO Magazine. His writing, which has won an award from the Society for Features Journalism, has also appeared in The Atlantic, Vox, and The Nation. He was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, and now lives in Washington, D.C.

We thank our donors and their generosity for making this special program possible. To learn more about supporting SVWC, visit our donations page.