We’re thrilled to announce the next fellows for our Writer’s Residency in Downtown Las Vegas. We welcome our fellows William D’Urso, Liz Iversen, Annesha Sengupta, and Daiei Onoguchi.
Fellows will spend a month in the vibrant heart of downtown Las Vegas, engaging with and becoming a part of the city’s thriving arts scene. The fellowship is designed to give talented writers and other creatives the space, time, and freedom to work on their longform projects, and the bibliophilic joy of living in a fully furnished apartment next to Las Vegas’ literary hub, The Writer’s Block bookstore.
Our apartment is in The Lucy, which also houses the Writer's Block. The Lucy is Beverly Rogers’ multi-use artist residency and complex, dedicated to fostering a creative community in Las Vegas.
Special thanks again to Nevada Humanities, UNLV, and private donors for helping bring these fellowships to life.
William d’urso - september 2025
William D’Urso is a longform narrative journalist. In his previous career in newspapers he covered aerospace and defense before investing in the craft of narrative nonfiction for publications like SB Nation, Vice and Outside magazine. He has covered the cost overruns of the F-35, shadowy DARPA programs and stood on the front lines of California’s battle with the growing problem of wildfires. His story “Shadow Boxer,” a true crime yarn about stolen identity, was a Longreads top 5 read of the week. William believes in the power of well reported and written scenes to draw the audience into a story and keep them there long after they have finished reading. He has worked in the salmon fishing camps of Kodiak, Alaska and gone toe-to-toe in the boxing ring with pros in the making. He resides in Vermont.
About his project: William will be working on a project about a Vegas gambling tycoon.
liz iversen - october 2025
Liz Iversen’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Passages North, Fourteen Hills, Room, and elsewhere. An Aspen Summer Words Emerging Writer Fellow, Tin House Scholar, and Ashley Bryan Fellow with the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, she lives with her husband and children in Portland, Maine, where she is at work on a novel. This is the second part of a residency started in 2024 in collaboration with AAWW.
About her project: Liz will be drafting a contemporary domestic novel set in Maine and revising a historical fiction novel set in Japanese-occupied Philippines.
annesha sengupta - november 2025
Annesha Mitha is a graduate of the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan, where she received her MFA in fiction. Her work has been published in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, American Short Fiction, and more. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Program, StoryKnife Writers' Residency, and Kundiman. Her debut short story collection, "Every Other Universe," was a finalist for the 2024 Restless Books Prize in New Immigrant Writing.
About her project: Annesha will be working on finishing her debut novel, Assisted Living, an exploration of aging and memory disguised as a ghost story. Five Bengali friends who committed a terrible deed in their childhoods, reunite at the age of 82 at a haunted nursing home. What proceeds is an examination of guilt, grief, and getting older.
daiei onoguchi - december 2025
Daiei is a Tokyo-based bilingual (Japanese x English) filmmaker who focuses on telling extraordinary Japanese stories.
In 2018, his comedic documentary "Pot of Gold: The Origin of Japanese Bidet" won several awards including the Best Documentary Award from Los Angeles Independent Film Festival. He was then hired by the Washington Wizards to film Rui Hachimura, the first Japanese player ever taken in the NBA's first round, and followed his journey for 4 years. From 2018 to 2025, he directed a feature documentary about a Michelin yakitori chef in NY who used to be Japan's number one b-boy (breakdancer).
About his project: Daiei will be working on a script for a narrative short film that he will be directing in 2026.