The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance is excited to announce this year’s Maine Lit Fest Fellows.

The Lit Fest Fellows will play a vital role in planning, promoting, and hosting the Maine Lit Fest, scheduled for the fall of 2022. Lit Fest Fellows will connect and build relationships with underrepresented groups, spread the word about guest authors, drum up interest, and invite community members to participate. Fellows will also provide input into festival presenters and events and help host and coordinate smaller community-based events during and/or leading up to the Maine Lit Fest. Each fellow will receive a $1,000 stipend for 60 to 80 hours of work over the course of the planning period.

This year’s Maine Lit Fest Fellows include (below, clockwise from left to right) ESOL instructor, Maine Humanities Council facilitator, and writer Virginie Akimana; musician, writer, tutor, and translator Johan Alexander Fenney, writer, reader, and communications manager at The Telling Room Rylan Hynes; Chinese, Irish, and Canadian writer and business owner Coco McCracken; and Maliseet writer, visual artist, and editor Mihku Paul. A full bio for each Lit Fest Fellow appears below.

Please save September 30 through October 8 and stay tuned to our website for more Maine Lit Fest updates in the coming weeks and months.

2022 Maine Lit Fest Fellows

Virginie Akimana is from Rwanda. She is currently an ESOL Instructor at Portland Adult Education (PAE) and a Facilitator and Speaker at Maine Humanities Council (MHC). Virginie holds a Bachelors’ degree in English-Literature with Education, a MBA-IB (International Business), a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, and an Executive Postgraduate Diploma in International Trade Policy and Trade Law. She taught communication and business-related courses at the University of Rwanda and served as Acting Manager of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network in the Great Lakes region. Virginie is currently working on a novel entitled KAMEGEYO: The Bush Girl, which depicts the life of a village girl who struggles to take her life to another level.

Johan Alexander Fenney is a musician, translator, and tutor based in Portland, Maine. The recipient of an inaugural Ashley Bryan Fellowship from MWPA in 2021, Alex was recently awarded a spot in the 2022 Periplus Collective for Emerging Writers. An avid volunteer and literacy advocate (and ex-indie bookstore employee), Alex is thrilled to be part of Maine Lit Fest and looks forward to helping bridge gaps and connect communities through the power of books and words.

Rylan Hynes grew up in South Portland and studied creative writing, visual art, and theatre at College of the Atlantic as an undergraduate. Rylan is currently the Communications Manager at The Telling Room in Portland, Maine, and has worked with independent bookstores and literary nonprofits across the country, including Maine's own Nonesuch Books and award-winning poetry press Alice James Books. In 2020, the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance and Maine Community Foundation awarded Rylan with a Martin Dibner Fellowship to attend the Harvest Writers Retreat. When they aren't busy writing short stories, novels, and essays, Rylan enjoys spending time with their spouse and their hedgehog.

Coco McCracken is a Chinese, Irish, and Canadian writer based in Portland, Maine, where she also runs a marketing business. She is the recipient of a 2021 Ashley Bryan Fellowship with the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and her chapbook, The Rabbit, was selected by author Melissa Febos for the Maine Chapbook series, and will be published in fall 2022. Coco is a guest columnist for Amjambo Africa and the co-creator of a forthcoming journal spotlighting Asian Americans living in Maine. If she isn’t behind her camera, Coco is working on her first book, playing in the woods with her daughter Ryan June, and dreaming big with her husband Ian.

Mihku Paul is a Maliseet writer and visual artist who lives and works in Portland. She is a 2010 graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Her poetry can be found in multiple publications and has been translated internationally to French and Spanish. Her first book, 20th Century PowWow Playland, was published in 2012 by Bowman Books. She is the Executive Editor of Dawnland Voices 2.0 (Dawnland Voices.org). Recent publications include Wait: Poems from the Pandemic and Enough! Poems of Resistance and Protest. Upcoming work will be featured in Atlantic Vernacular (Craft New Brunswick exhibition).