We’re thrilled to announce the next fellows for our Writer’s Residency in Downtown Las Vegas. We welcome our fellows Katarina Zhu, Nina Michiko Tam, Prachi Gupta, and Blaine Fuller, and our guest Adam Chitayat.
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 partners like UNLV, AAWW and The Ruby for helping bring these fellowships to life. Past funders include Nevada Humanities, Amazon Literary Partners, Submittable, and private donors.
Katarina zhu - january 2026
Katarina Zhu is an emerging actress, director and writer based in NYC. She graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2018 with a BFA in drama. In 2021, she was selected as an inaugural fellow for the Women in Film Shorts Lab supported by Google. Her short premiered at the New Hampshire Film Festival. Most recently, she made her directorial debut with Bunnylovr which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. As an actress, she can next be seen in Jonah Feingold’s upcoming feature 31 CANDLES.
About her project: She will be working on the screenplay of her second feature film.
Nina michiko tam - february 2026
Nina Michiko Tam is a half-Japanese and half-Chinese writer who was born and raised on the island of O‘ahu, Hawai‘i. Her debut novel, TASTES LIKE SEEING GOD, is forthcoming from Pamela Dorman Books/Penguin Random House.
An alum of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, she most recently won the 2024 Asian-American Writers Workshop Pages-in-Progress Award. A graduate of Yale Law School, by day she works as a civil-rights attorney in Houston, Texas.
About her project: Nina will be focusing on edits for her debut novel, TASTES LIKE SEEING GOD, as well as her second book-in-progress.
Prachi gupta - march 2026
Prachi Gupta is an award-winning journalist and author. Her debut memoir, They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us, was longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award, named one of the best books of the year by Amazon and Audible, and nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award. Her journalism has earned a Writers Guild Award and been featured in Best American Magazine Writing 2021. She is a former senior reporter at Jezebel, and has bylines the Atlantic, the Guardian, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere.
About her project: Prachi will be writing and researching a screenplay that satirizes late-stage capitalism and the Faustian bargain society has made for increased convenience and temporary comfort.
Blaine fuller - april 2026
Blaine studied creative writing at UCLA, film directing at NYU, and cinematography at FAMU in the Czech Republic. He was invited to the Kyoto Filmmakers Lab, the Zurich Film Festival Academy, to study with Werner Herzog in the Canary Islands with La Selva, and into the Directors Unit at the Actors Studio in 2024. His mentors include Spike Lee, Todd Solondz, and Alex Rockwell. He was a monk in Myanmar, a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, and a UFC boxing cameraman in Busan, South Korea.
About his project: Blaine will be working on the screenplay for his follow-up to his feature debut, Collection Day. His second film is set in Las Vegas and follows a bookie and is based on the real-life experiences of Blaine's cousin, who has been a bookie for over a decade.
adam chitayat - march 2026
Adam Chitayat is an award winning filmmaker based out of Brooklyn, NY. His work has been screened at film festivals ranging from Tribeca to SFFILM. His work has been featured on platforms such as NOWNESS, Director's Library, TEDx, Vimeo Staff Picks and The Times of Israel. Adam's clients have included Google, D'Addario, Corning, Rolling Stone, Full Circle and Baist, as well as musicians such as DRAMA, Axel Boman, Royal Blood, and Sofi Tukker. He has been a staff producer at Walter Pictures, D’Addario, and Full Circle, as well as a freelance producer & production manager for SMUGGLER, MATTE, M ss ng P eces, Ways & Means, Skunk, Rathaus, Black Dog Films and Masterclass. He graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a degree in Film & Animation and an International Relations minor.
About his project: Adam will be working on a supernatural horror screenplay.