The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is pleased to announce Chris Baah, Melody Sun, Elena Wu, and Imani Noel as the recipients of our Spring 2026 Residency Fellowships. These residencies are designed to give writers time and space to explore their creative projects in a quiet and productive environment.
Black and/or Indigenous Writers Fellowship Recipient & Support Grant Winner
Chris Baah (or as ‘I Echo’) is an MFA student at George Mason University. A Ghanaian-Nigerian, he is the author of ‘Among the Secret Things,’ forthcoming in the African Poetry Book Fund’s New-Generation African Poets Series. His other writing has been published / is forthcoming in Callaloo, Mudroom, The Good Life Review, and elsewhere.
Fellowships for LGBTQIA+ Writers Recipient
Melody Sun is a queer Chinese Canadian writer who immigrated to Canada when she was fifteen years old. She graduated from Simon Fraser University’s Writer’s Studio program in 2022. Her work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, Grain, The Fiddlehead, Foglifter, Queer Toronto Literary Magazine, Ricepaper Magazine, and more. Melody is currently living in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Elena Wu (she/her) is a recent MFA Writing graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her poems and fiction have appeared in Eunoia Review, The Orange Rose, and the forthcoming IONTAS Magazine. Born in Nanjing, she now lives in Rhode Island, pursuing a PhD in English. Find her on Instagram: @i_love_626. She writes a newsletter about her dating life and life in general on Substack: @draco0304.
Smokelong Quarterly Fellowship for Trans Writers Recipient & Support Grant Winner
Imani Noel (ee-mah-nee no-el) (they/he/she/we), is a black, queer, trans-masculine, non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid, femme, demi-boi. They are a cross-genre writer, interdisciplinary artist, arts educator, somatic practitioner, reiki teacher, and meditation teacher from the South Side of Chicago, now based in New York. He earned degrees in African-American Studies and Visual Arts (in Sculpture) from Princeton University in 2018. She later entered the English & Comparative Literature Ph.D. program at Columbia University where they received a Master’s degree in 2020. As of February 2026, Imani is certified by the Focalizing Institute in Dr. Michael Picucci’s healing modality which he, a cis gay man, initially used to support the LGBT community throughout the early HIV/AIDS epidemic and after with sexual intimacy, addiction recovery, and trauma healing. In Spring 2027, Imani, a decade long Anapanasati and Vipassana practitioner, will start the 2-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program led by Dr. Tara Brach and Dr. Jack Kornfield. Imani has begun an MSW at the Hunter Silberman School in Community Organizing on the Gender & Sexuality track.
Imani makes work about intimacy, experiencing black trans-masculine embodiment, and black trans life across visual art, cross-genre writing, movement, music, spiritual practice, and the healing arts to love on and speculate upon black trans life and imagine ongoing intergenerational healing and complete black trans futures. They have published writing in Aperture, The Sole Adventurer, and Black Minds Mag. They have had solo/group shows at Princeton University, Broodthaers Society of America, Culture Lab LIC, the Arts Students League of New York, and Studio 9D. They founded Black Body Productions, an edutainment production company focused on black, queer, and trans community healing. They launched the Body Talk–a healing workshop container and Black Body Production that integrates spirituality, somatics, and creativity grounded in their Black Body healing modality–in December 2025.
Finalists for this spring’s fellowships include Ava Pauline Emilione, Ari Moline, Mazerick Betko, Amari-Grey Johnson, Hana Urban, Acamea Deadwiler, Madisen Gummer, Noella Williams, and Eric C. Wat.
Applications are now open for summer residents here.
