Today Velvetpark is announcing our inaugural writing fellowship program 2025. In lieu of our regular six months writing residency, we have awarded four writers a five week studio residency along with other programming which will help further develop each writer’s work and professional goals.
Our fellows were selected based upon two criteria; they were previous applicants to the Writer’s Residency who had been shortlisted by our selection committee, and a participant in our Spotlight series represented on Velvetparkmedia.com. The upcoming fellows include novelists, poets and playwrights.
The Fellowship Program will run from January through June 2025. Our regular six month visual artist residency will begin July 2025, followed by the writers residency, resuming in January 2026. Please join our newsletter to stay up to date.
Meet our 2025 Fellows:
Alexander Cavaluzzo
Alexander will be joining us from January 3rd – February 7th, 2025
Alexander Cavaluzzo is a Manhattan-based writer and artist whose work frequently integrates aesthetics and politics. Their words and images are distinguished by a fusion of intellectual rigor, cultural references, and personal introspection. “Alexander Cavaluzzo” has been on the mastheads of Interview, Newsweek, BlackBook, and Hyperallergic, and artwork bearing the signature “Alexander Cavaluzzo” has been exhibited globally. Their contributions to culture have been honored with a NYFA Grant, a Tisch Scholarship, and a 2023-24 fellowship at the Writer’s Institute at the CUNY Graduate Center.
See more by Alexander:
J.C Pankratz
J.C will be joining us from February 14th – March 21st, 2025
J.C. Pankratz (they/them) is a trans and queer writer making plays about the body, power, and the more-than-human world. Their plays are Mortals (Pridefest at The Tank), Eat Your Young (INK’D Festival; workshop production, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), Little Kingdom (2nd Place, Mark Twain Playwriting Award; Distinguished Achievement, Paula Vogel Playwriting Award), Seahorse (2021 FMM Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language), and Redeemer Mine (Finalist, O’Neill Playwrights Conference). They have been a Core Apprentice with the Playwrights’ Center, a Writing Fellow with the Playwrights Realm, and a Visionary Playwright with Theatremasters. They are a proud member of Theatreworkers for a Ceasefire and join culture workers across the globe in solidarity for Palestinian liberation.
See more by J.C:
Mia Arias Tsang
Mia will be joining us from March 28th – May 2nd, 2025
Mia Arias Tsang is a writer and freelance editor based in New York City. Her work explores themes of queer desire, intimacy, and disconnect. A Tin House Summer Workshop alum, her work has appeared in Autostraddle, Copy, Half Mystic Press, Fatal Flaw Magazine, and Broad Recognition Magazine, among others. She is a copy editor for the literary magazine Identity Theory and program manager at the literary nonprofit House of SpeakEasy, and writes a newsletter called “Overripe Peach.” Her first book, FRAGMENTS OF WASTED DEVOTION, is forthcoming in February 2025 from Quilted Press. She lives in Queens with her cat, Peanut, and is currently working on a novel.
See more by Mia:
Gloria Oladipo
Gloria will be joining us from May 9th – June 13th, 2025
Gloria Oladipo is a playwright based in New York, proudly hailing from Chicago, IL. She writes Black comedies about Black women, exploring themes of caregiving, mental health, and trauma through a mix of realism and absurdism. Gloria is a 2023-2025 Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group Fellow. She is also 2022-2023 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow and 2023 Seven Devils New Play Conference resident, where her play The Care and Keeping of Schizophrenia (and Other Demons) was in development. She is a 2023 Gingold Group Speaker’s Corner fellow, with her play I Wanna Kill, Annie G. Gloria has been an artist-in-residence with New York Stage and Film in Poughkeepsie, New York and the Fresh Ground Pepper group in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. Her work has been developed by various theaters including the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York City and Boston Court Pasadena in Pasadena, California. She is also a two-Velvetpark Writers Residency finalist and a Eugene O’Neil Playwriting Conference Semi-Finalist.
Gloria is also an award-winning cultural critic and journalist. She is the 2023 recipient of the American Theatre Critics Association’s Edward Medina Prize for Excellence in Cultural Criticism. She is a 2022 National Critics Institute fellow at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, an opportunity she was selected for via the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Institute for Theatre Journalism and Advocacy. Gloria’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Teen Vogue, the Guardian, and other publications. gloriaoladipo.com
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