The Adroit Journal is proud to announce the eighth class of Gregory Djanikian Scholars in Poetry and the inaugural class of Anthony Veasna So Scholars in Fiction—twelve exciting emerging poets and fiction writers we should all be watching. All emerging poets and fiction writers who have not published full-length collections or novels were eligible for submission—regardless of age, geographic location, and educational status.
Selected from a competitive pool of over 1,200 international applicants, Djanikian and Veansa So Scholars receive stipends and publication.
The 2025 class of Gregory Djanikian Scholars in Poetry includes: janan alexandra (of Bloomington, Indiana), Akhim Yuseff Cabey (of Columbus, Ohio), Lie Ford (of Berea, Kentucky), Brian Gyamfi (of Washington, D.C.), Tyler Raso (of New York, New York), and Giovannai Rosa (of Washington, D.C.).
The 2025 class of Anthony Veasna So Scholars in Fiction includes: Elisa Luna Ady (of Chicago, Illinois) Mayookh Barua (of Los Angeles, California), Hiya Chowdhury (of Amherst, Massachusetts), Andy Lopez (of the Philippines), Nur Turkmani (of Lebanon), and Yun Wei (of Switzerland).
More information about each scholar is available below.
We couldn’t be more excited about each unique, vibrant voice we’ve been fortunate enough to acquaint ourselves with this year. Each of these writers brings an undeniable fire to the page, and we can’t wait to see what they’ll write next.
Finalists for the 2025 Scholar Class include: Maeve Barry · Edward Fauvin · McKendy Fils-Aimé · C. Francis Fisher · Kayla Hogan · Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong · Jake Lancaster · Jingyu Li · Jeremiah Moriarty · Weston Morrow · Talin Tahajian · Katie Quach.
Our 2025 Semifinalists include: PK Damilare Abiodun · HQ Amshetsep · Ashley Bao · Alex Chertok · M. Cynthia Cheung · Sterling Davis · Isabella DeSendi · Chey Dugan · David Ehmcke · Harrison Hamm · Samuel Jensen · Arielle Kaplan · Mickie Kennedy · Elane Kim · Seth Leeper · Evander Reyes · Sayantani Roy · Alafia Nicole Sessions · Lane Michael Stanley · Persimmon Tobing · Anna Vallée.
ABOUT THE 2025 DJANIKIAN & VEASNA SO SCHOLARS
janan alexandra is the author of COME FROM (BOA Editions, 2025). Her poem “On Form & Matter” won the 2023 Adrienne Rich Award, and her poem “Open Letter To A Politician” is featured in Lit Hub’s 50 Contemporary Poets on the Best Poems they Read in 2024. janan teaches at Indiana University and in community spaces, edits poetry at The Rumpus, and helps curate Mondays Are Free, a Substack collaboration by BFF poets Ross Gay and Pat Rosal.
Mayookh Barua (Fiction) is a Los Angeles-based writer from Northeast India. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in USC’s Creative Writing and Literature Department. His work explores sexuality, art, mythology, education, and family through a queer South-Asian voice. A 2023 Roots.Wounds.Words fellow, his work appears or is forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, Litro Magazine, The Third Eye, Mezosfera Magazine, and elsewhere.
Akhim Yuseff Cabey (Poetry) was born in the Bronx, New York, and educated upstate both at Siena College and the State University of New York at Albany. After receiving an MFA from The Ohio State University, he taught at several different colleges and universities before pivoting to the non-profit sector of adult education. A Pushcart Prize-winning Black author, his debut full-length collection of poetry, entitled Get Funky, Get Swoll, is forthcoming in 2026 from Black Lawrence Press. He is a six-time recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and a Headlands Center for the Arts resident fellow. His work has appeared in Colorado Review, RHINO, Indiana Review, The Florida Review, Shenandoah, Callaloo, and elsewhere. He now lives in Columbus, Ohio, and can be found on Instagram @the_fit_poet.
Hiya Chowdhury (Fiction) is a writer and student from Delhi, India. She is an MFA candidate in prose at UMass-Amherst, and her work has previously appeared in Rust+Moth, LEON Literary Review, and elsewhere. Hiya is currently working on her debut short fiction collection.
Lie Ford (Poetry) is from Knoxville, Tennessee, and is currently a senior majoring in English at Berea College. She was the winner of the 2023 Flo Gault Student Poetry Prize through Sarabande Books and her work has previously appeared in Still: The Journal.
Brian Gyamfi (Poetry) is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, the Zell Fellowship, two Hopwood Awards, the Helen S. and John Wagner Prize, and the Michael R. Gutterman Award. He has been a finalist for the Poetry International Prize, the Oxford Poetry Prize, and the National Poetry Series. Gyamfi graduated summa cum laude with honors from the University of Texas, earning his BA, and later received his MFA from the University of Michigan. His libretto, The Ants Are Illuminated, was commissioned by Overtone Industry for their Original Vision opera. His work has appeared in POETRY, Narrative Magazine, The Adroit Journal, Poetry International, Guernica, and other publications. He serves as a contributing editor at Oxford Poetry.
Andy Lopez (Fiction) lives and writes in the Philippines. She has received fellowships from the GrubStreet Emerging Writer Fellowship, the Silliman University National Writers Workshop, among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and has been published in Split Lip Magazine, The Best Small Fictions 2021, Underblong, and other magazines and anthologies. Find her everywhere at @andylopezwrites.
Elisa Luna Ady (Fiction) is a writer from Southern California. Her work is featured or forthcoming in The Spectacle, wildness, The Best Small Fictions, and elsewhere. She is a current MFA+MA candidate at Northwestern University, where she’s at work on a short story collection and a novel.
Tyler Raso (Poetry) (they/she) is a poet, essayist, and teacher. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Electric Literature, The Offing, Black Warrior Review, DIAGRAM, Salt Hill Journal, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. Previously a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellow, they currently teach at Fordham University. She feels most at home near rivers, and can be found tweeting @spaghettiutopia.
Giovannai Rosa (Poetry) is a writer, editor, and artist from Miami. A 2023 Tin House Reading Fellow, 2023 Tin House Scholar, and 2022 Periplus Fellow, their work has been housed in Ploughshares, Passages North, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, The Offing, Oxford American, and more. As an editor at The Hopkins Review, they curated Estuary: a series on poets before the first book. Find them at giovarosa.com.
Nur Turkmani (Fiction) is a writer and researcher in Beirut. Her research explores social movements, displacement, and agriculture. Her fiction and poetry appears in Short Fiction Journal, West Branch, Discontent, The Rumpus, The Missouri Review, The Offing, and others. She has essays in Dazed, Syria Untold, Al-Jumhuriyya, and The Evergreen Review. She’s an editor-at-large at Rusted Radishes: Beirut’s Art and Literary Journal.
Yun Wei (Fiction) received her MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College and studied at Georgetown University and London School of Economics. She has been awarded second place in the Boulevard Poetry Contest and first place in the Geneva Literary Prizes. Her fiction and poetry appear in over fifteen journals, including Poetry Daily, Brooklyn Rail, Michigan Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, and Wigleaf. Her debut novel is represented by Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. She works in global health in Switzerland, where she relies on chocolate and tears to survive mountain sports.
ABOUT THE ADROIT JOURNAL
At its foundation, The Adroit Journal has its eyes focused ahead, seeking to showcase what its global staff of writers sees as the future of poetry, prose, and art. The journal hosts the annual Adroit Prizes for Poetry and Prose, the Gregory Djanikian Scholars Program, the Anthony Veasna So Scholars Program, and the online Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program.
Featured in Best American Poetry, Pushcart Prizes: Best of the Small Presses, Poetry Daily, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets, and by the New York Times, the Paris Review, Teen Vogue, PBS NewsHour, and NPR, the journal has featured the voices of Terrance Hayes, Arthur Sze, Joanna Klink, D. A. Powell, Edith Pearlman, Jericho Brown, Kim Addonizio, Raymond Antrobus, Victoria Chang, Eve L. Ewing, Lydia Millet, NoViolet Bulawayo, Ocean Vuong, Arthur Sze, Sarah Kay, Ned Vizzini, Fatimah Asghar, Danez Smith, and beyond.