MFA Student Sydney Mayes Awarded The FSG Writer’s Fellowship
The 2026 FSG Writer’s Fellowship has been awarded to the poet Sydney Mayes. President and Publisher of FSG Mitzi Angel says: “Sydney Mayes is a poet of talent and originality. Her work is at once lucid and lyrical, archivally informed and new, cerebral and attentive to the body. Drawing from intimate and national histories, from early experiences of caretaking and from the lives of Dearfield, Colorado homesteaders, she poses questions—about Black labor in the American West, about family, and about belonging—with clear and unusual music. We’re thrilled to award her the 2026 Fellowship, and we’re grateful to this year’s judges, Victoria Chang, Merve Emre, and Elisa Gonzales, for bringing her powerful voice to our attention.”
Many congratulations to Sydney and to the four finalists, William Hawkins, Tassity Johnson, Young Rader, and Maggie Wang. Read more about their work here.
First launched in 2021, the FSG Writer’s Fellowship is an annual program designed to give an emerging writer from an underrepresented community additional resources to build a life around writing—including $15,000 in funding, editorial guidance, and support from the FSG community. The Fellowship celebrates the spirit of the FSG list and its commitment to invention, curiosity, and extending the limits of literature.
