2026 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices
Since 2007, the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices has offered sophisticated instruction in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young adult fiction, playwriting led by the most talented writers working today. In 2022, the Writers Retreat expanded to include instruction in screenwriting and speculative fiction, and in 2025, we will introduce the newest cohort: romantic fiction.
Our Writers Retreat takes place annually around the end of July into the first week of August. In addition to our full suite of programming which includes 5 days of workshops, and 8 days of panels, craft talks, and generative writing sessions, we also offer the opportunity to connect as a community by reading at our nightly reading series, attending social events, and building camaraderie over coffee chats and virtual community building.
APPLICATION STATUS
OPEN
Applications for the Writers Retreat are open from November 21, 2025-January 8, 2026 at 11:59 pm Eastern Time.
Apply nowThe Writers Retreat will take place from August 1-8, 2026. As we did in 2025, we are holding our Writers Retreat online. This format allows for us to continue building our organizational resources while offering the same high-quality programming that remains accessible to folks who may not otherwise be able to attend in-person programs. Not only that, but the Virtual Retreat was a hit in 2025! Fellows and Faculty reported the Lambda Literary Virtual Retreat model was “one of the more accessible and inclusive retreats of its kind available to writers, and is driven forward by leadership who are dedicated to supporting queer artists and their development” (Sam Heyman, 2022/2025 Fellow). Details below.
Dates: August 1-August 8, 2026
Takes Place: Online
Tuition: $1,100
Scholarships, Financial Support, and Fundraising: Thanks to the support of individual and institutional donations, Lambda Literary has a robust scholarship and financial support program. Our scholarships are manuscript-, demographics-, and need-based. In addition to the many scholarship opportunities, Lambda Literary also offers full financial support on a need-based basis. Even if you do not receive one of the available scholarships, you’re still eligible for financial support from us.
You may apply to as many scholarships and/or opportunities as you are eligible for. Application to scholarship and financial support does not have an impact on your application status and is only seen by Lambda Literary staff, and where noted, fellowship committees. Your response is concealed from other reviewers including faculty members who make the final decisions on all selected fellows.
Additionally, fellows will no longer have to fundraise for their own tuition–Lambda Literary will provide financial support to those who need it. We are working hard to make our spaces as accessible as possible, and those who cannot pay their own way should not have to expend more time and energy just to attend. With this new plan, Lambda Literary will be offering financial support to make sure every accepted writer can attend, regardless of financial status.
Application Dates: Applications for fellowships open on November 21, 2025 and close at 11:59 PM EST on January 8th, 2026.
Application Fee: There is a $30 application fee. You may apply to more than one workshop, however, each application must be submitted separately and requires an additional fee. The fee is processed through Submittable’s online portal. If you wish to pay by cash or check please contact retreat@lambdaliterary.org.
Application Fee Waivers: A limited number of application fee waivers are available for QTBIPOC (Queer and Trans folks who are Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color) members of our community who have never attended the Writers Retreat before.
To inquire about a fee waiver, email retreat@lambdaliterary.org confirming your eligibility as:
- A member of the QTBIPOC community
- Someone who has never attended the Retreat before.
You do not need to provide any other identifying information. Waivers are given out on a first-come-first serve basis. Secure yours sooner rather than later!
Application Review: Our application review is done in three stages by a team of Retreat Alumni, our Program Manager, and Retreat Faculty. Our application process is unique in that each Faculty member chooses their own cohort.
2026 Retreat Faculty
Please join us in welcoming the faculty members leading the 2026 Retreat.
Alejandro Varela
Fiction
Alejandro Varela (he/him) is based in New York. His work has appeared in the Boston, Yale, and Georgia Reviews, The Point Magazine, Harper’s, and The Offing, among other publications.
His debut novel, The Town of Babylon (Astra House, 2022) was a finalist for the National Book Award. His short story collection, The People Who Report More Stress (Astra, 2023), was a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards, and longlisted for the Aspen Literary Prize, the Story Prize, and the Jean Stein Awards. His latest novel, Middle Spoon, was published by Viking on September 9, 2025.
Varela is an editor-at-large of Apogee Journal, and holds a masters degree in public health from the University of Washington.
Anaïs Duplan
Nonfiction
Anaïs Duplan is a trans* poet, curator, and artist. He is the author of the poetry collection I NEED MUSIC (Action Books, 2021), which reinvents ekphrasis as an act of devotion to art as both the sense-archive and future tense of Black embodiment; Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a collection of lyric essays that is the culmination of six years of multidisciplinary research about the aesthetic strategies used by experimental artists of color since the 1960s to pursue liberatory possibility; and the poetry collection Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016). He is also the author of the chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017).
In 2016, Duplan founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City’s artist-run organization Public Space One. As an independent curator, he has facilitated curatorial projects in Chicago, Boston, Santa Fe, and Reykjavík. He was a 2017-2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem, and in 2021 he received a Marian Goodman fellowship from Independent Curators International for his research on Black experimental documentary. He is the recipient of the 2021 QUEER|ART|PRIZE for Recent Work, and a 2022 Whiting Award in Nonfiction.
Duplan is a professor of postcolonial literature at Bennington College, and has taught poetry at The New School, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College, and others.
Sharifa Yazmeen
Playwriting
Sharifa Yazmeen is a trans Arab-American director, actor, and playwright. She has completed directing fellowships with The Drama League, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Manhattan Theatre Club, Geva Theatre, and was a Eugene O’Neill national directing fellow. Her plays have been published in Overheard, a collection of monologues by and for TNB2S+ artists and the both editions of the Methuen Drama Book of Trans Plays.
Her play Close to Home was distinguished by the American Theatre Wing at the annual Antoinette Gala, and was included on the 2023 Kilroy’s list. Yazmeen was also honored as the inaugural recipient of the SCDF’s Barbara Whitman Award in 2021, and Abe Burrows award in 2024. She holds a MFA in Directing from Brown/Trinity Rep.
Faylita Hicks
Poetry
Faylita Hicks (she/they) is a queer Afro-Latinx poet, Grammy-nominated interdisciplinary recording artist, and creative strategist. They are the author of A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books, 2024)—winner of the 2025 Midwest Book Award for Poetry and finalist for the 2025 CWA Book of the Year—and HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award. Hicks is the founder of The Craft Career Studio™ and a 2025 Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellow, creating work that merges social justice, spirituality, and art.
They live and create in Chicago, Illinois.
Casey McQuiston
Romantic Fiction
Casey McQuiston is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of queer romantic comedies. Their books have been honored by the Stonewall Book Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and the American Library Association, and their writing on life and literature has been published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Bon Appetit. Their debut novel, Red, White and Royal Blue, was adapted to an Emmy-nominated film in 2023. When not writing love stories, they can be found staring at the nearest body of water or spending time with their beloved and always-hungry poodle mix, Pepper.
Born and raised in southern Louisiana, Casey now lives with their family in beautiful Queens, New York.
Desta Tedros Reff
Screenwriting
Desta Tedros Reff is a writer and director that has written on a variety of different shows, from character dramas (Sorry for Your Loss, The Last Tycoon) to action (Shooter) and then some (The Purge, Grand Hotel). She served as an Executive Producer on Amazon Prime Video’s television reboot of A League of Their Own which was honored by the Human Rights Campaign and received a 2023 GLAAD Award for Outstanding New TV Show. Most recently, Desta has been writing a number of feature film adaptations—Queen of Basketball, the 2022 Oscar-winning Short Documentary, and Nothing to See Here, the acclaimed best-selling novel.
Before transitioning to entertainment, Desta had a former career as a lawyer and spent several years in the Mississippi Delta working as a social justice advocate. Desta loves to tell stories from a place of empathy that brings marginalized perspectives into the mainstream, specifically through authentic portrayals of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC characters and stories. She is a mother to two wonderful children Edith and Maple, who are her proudest achievement and her favorite thing.
Andrea Hairston
Speculative Fiction
Andrea Hairston ran away from the physics lab to the theatre as a young thing and has been a scientist, artiste, and hoodoo conjurer ever since. She is a novelist, poet, playwright, and Professor Emerita of Theatre and Africana Studies at Smith College. Stories that have been erased, stolen, or hidden call to her. An Afrofuturist in league with Indigenous Futurists, novels include: Archangels of Funk, shortlisted for the Le Guin Prize; Will Do Magic For Small Change, a NYT Editor’s pick, finalist for the Mythopoeic, Lambda, and Otherwise Awards; Redwood and Wildfire, Otherwise winner; Master of Poisons on Kirkus Review’s Best SF&F.
Andrea bikes at night year-round, meeting bears, multi-legged creatures of light and breath, and the occasional shooting star. The Redemption Center is Closed on Sundays will be out in May, 2026.
Anna-Marie McLemore
Young Adult Fiction
Anna-Marie McLemore is the author of thirteen novels, including William C. Morris YA Debut Award finalist The Weight of Feathers; Lambda Literary Award Finalist Lakelore; and National Book Award longest selections When the Moon Was Ours, The Mirror Season, and Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix. Their adult debut, The Influencers, was a People Magazine Best Book of April 2025 and one of The Today Show’s Best Books of May 2025. Their next young adult novel, We Could Be Anyone, is forthcoming in spring 2026.
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Honoring LGBTQ+ Storytelling Since 1985
