The Fresno 15: Creative Writing Marathon

The Fresno 15 project will feature award-winning Fresno writers in a creative writing challenge and fundraiser to benefit the Larry Levis Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing. Volunteer authors run a "literary marathon," writing 15 pieces in 15 days, while the rest of us "sponsor" and encourage them as they write.

Visit the project website at FresnoWriters.com to read and enjoy the poetry and prose of our featured authors. Follow their progress and cheer them on!

Monique Quintana
October 2-16

MFA Creative Writing from Fresno State; B.A. English Literature from Fresno State

Monique is the author of the novella Cenote City (Clash Books, 2019) and the chapbook My Favorite Sancho and Other Fairy Tales (Sword and Kettle Press, 2021). Her work has appeared in Pank, Wildness, Winter Tangerine, The Acentos Review, and other publications. Her work has also been anthologized in projects such as Remapping Wonderland: Fairytales Retold by People of Color (Alternating Current Press, 2020), Grafitti (Aunt Lute Press, 2020), and Latinx Screams (Burial Day, 2020). You can find her book reviews and artist interviews at Luna Luna Magazine as a contributing editor. Her writing has been supported by Yaddo, the Sundress Academy for the Arts, the Community of Writers workshop, and the Open Mouth Poetry Retreat. She was Amplify's Inaugural Writer of Color Fellowship winner and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Fresno's Tower District.

Author website

Joseph Rios
October 9-23

MFA Creative Writing in progress from Bennington College; B.A. English Literature from the University of California, Berkeley

Joseph is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems and Impersonations (Omnidawn), winner of the American Book Award and was named one of the notable Debut Poets by Poets & Writers Magazine for 2017. He is from Fresno's San Joaquin Valley. He's been a gardener, a janitor, a packinghouse supervisor, and a handyman. He is a recipient of scholarships from the Community of Writers workshop and CantoMundo. He is a VONA alumnus and a Macondo Fellow. In 2015, he received the John K. Walsh residency fellowship from the University of Notre Dame. He is a graduate of Fresno City College and the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently attending the low residency MFA program at Bennington College. He lives in Fresno, CA.

Author website

Brian Turner
October 16-30

MFA Creative Writing from the University of Oregon; B.A. English Literature from Fresno State

Brian is the author of two collections of poetry: Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise. His memoir My Life as a Foreign Country was published in 2014. He’s the editor of The Kiss, and co-edited The Strangest of Theatres. Turner served in the US Army as an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq (2003-2004) and he deployed to Bosnia prior to that. His poetry and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, Harper’s, and other fine journals. Turner was featured in the documentary film Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was nominated for an Academy Award. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, and he’s received a USA Hillcrest Fellowship in Literature, an NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, a US-Japan Friendship Commission Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. He directs the MFA program at Sierra Nevada University and lives in Orlando, Florida.

Author website