Lihem Amlak is a senior at the University of Houston, set to graduate next December! After graduating, she hopes to begin a career in the publishing industry, which is why she chose the position of fiction intern at Defunkt. In her free time, Lihem likes to read, paint, and watch movies and TV shows.

Internship: Defunkt Magazine

Katherine Bacani is a rising senior majoring in English: Creative Writing with a minor in Spanish. She aspires to share her passion in self-expressive writing and cultivate creativity in the voices of young writers as a foreign language English educator. Beyond her time spent writing, she enjoys watching horror films, venturing out to Houston's many coffeeshops, and collecting plants!

Internship: Writers in the Schools (WITS)

Courtney Calhoun is a rising senior at the University of Houston where she studies English: Creative Writing and Creative Work. When she isn’t working or spending time with her son, Anakin, she’s ordering more books than she can possibly read. She aspires to one day bless the shelves of Barnes & Noble, even if it’s in the clearance section. 

Internship: Night Heron Media

Ellis Diep is a senior English student at UH whose passion for literature and writing started with reading stories by Ray Bradbury, and hopes one day to publish his own writings! There are many mediums to tell a story, but he believes writing is the most accessible and exists at the beginning of many great ideas for a reason. He also really enjoys spending his downtime figure skating, watching movies, reading, and eating too many tangerines. 

Internship: Grackle and Grackle

Verónica Ledezma Monsivais is an Honors student majoring in English and math at the University of Houston. As an avid storyteller, she aspires to publish urban fantasy novels and work as a screenwriter in the future. She plans to pursue an MFA in creative writing.

Internship: Writer’s Garret

Breland Patterson is a senior at the University of Houston pursuing an English B.A and Teacher Certification. She has a passion for teaching, short-story writing, and film writing. In her free time, she educates herself on social issues, reads science fiction/fantasy, and enjoys documentaries.

Internship: BOBB Films

Jessica Swenson is a senior communications student at the University of Houston with a love of writing and illustration. When she's not scribbling down her latest ideas for new stories and portraits, she's devoting herself to tutorials or devouring novels. A Jack-of-all trades kind of lady, her hobbies include watching animatics, obsessing over fictional characters, and singing off-key in stairwells.

Internship: Houston Grand Opera (HGO)

Aixa Tovar is an upcoming senior in the Creative Writing Program at The University of Houston. She is an aspiring storyteller and hopes to bring the film industry back to Houston, Tx. Her passion is to write stories tailored for the Hispanic community and to write more female-centric characters that women can relate to.

Internship: Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts

Natalie Dean is a rising senior studying English and creative writing. She is the managing editor and art section editor at Glass Mountain, UH's undergraduate literary journal. In her free time, she likes to paint, read and take care of her many, many house plants.

Internship: Night Heron Media

Shuruq N. Gyagenda is a recent graduate of the University of Houston, where she majored in English with a concentration in creative writing. She is an aspiring secondary school educator who believes in the power of storytelling to foster deep human connection. Outside of her career aspirations, Shuruq enjoys travelling, working out, exploring coffee shops and reading memoirs.

Internship: Writers in the Schools (WITS)

Kaunain Khan is a senior in the English department at UH with a creative writing concentration and minor in psychology. She enjoys writing stories with a lot of world-building, getting creative with the fonts and writing from multiple perspectives. She welcomes all surprises, cute stationery, iced coffees and rainy days in her life, and dreams of a future in which her sole job is nothing but being a writer.

Internship: Defunkt Magazine

Rana Mohamad is a senior at the University of Houston, majoring in English: Creative Writing. As a writer, she believes that through storytelling, a writer can live many lives and explore a variety of questions, all indicative of the human condition. Rana plans on pursuing an MFA in creative writing and publishing short stories, poems and memoirs.

Internship: Langrand

Jack Morillo is a third-year student working towards a Bachelors of Arts in Liberal Studies at the University of Houston. In this broad program of study, his favorite ventures have been in creative writing (with an emphasis on poetry) and art history. He likes earrings, soaps, hats and finding movies to add on his Letterboxd.

Internship: Public Art: University of Houston System

Michael Noldt is a post-baccalaureate creative writing student with a concentration in fiction. When not reading or daydreaming about writing, he typically plans a multitude of elaborate traveling plans around the country via Google Earth; 90 percent of which he abandons in favor of driving to New Orleans again. 

Internship: Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts

Alfonso Reyes is an Honors English student at the University of Houston, with a minor in Leadership Studies. In his free time, he loves to read hysterical realism, westerns and speculative fiction; write prose that tends to lean towards horror; and dabble in all forms of poetry. Despite having worked at a bookstore and his subsequent familiarity with the Dewey Decimal System, he organizes his personal bookshelves by color.

Internship: Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts

Jess Swenson is an aspiring writer from the University of Houston studying journalism, fiction and media production. A Jack-of-all trades kind of queen, she’s had her work published with magazines like Cooglife and lives by the motto “If I can’t find a way, I’ll make one.”

Internship: Night Heron Media

Florencia Caceres is a recent graduate of the University of Houston with degrees in English and public relations. She enjoys writing young adult fantasy and poetry. In the future, she hopes to work in book publishing and continue writing.

Florencia is interning with Houston-based Night Heron Media.

Piper Gourley is a creative writer from Houston, Texas, studying fiction at the University of Houston. Her bylined work has been published in The Interlochen Review, Thought Catalog, History101, Living101, The Sun Magazine and more. As a ghostwriter, she has published over 650 creative works across the web.

Piper is interning at Nowhere Bookshop in San Antonio, Texas.

Ashley Guidry is a lover of all forms of art. She also enjoys watching Netflix and eating good food in her spare time. She can be found in the city of Houston where she was born and raised.

Ashley is interning with Grackle and Grackle Writing Enterprises.

Allison Lee is a rising junior studying creative writing and philosophy at the University of Houston. She is the president of the Creative Writing Club at UH.

Allison Lee is interning with the literary magazine Music and Literature.

Naveera Majid just finished her first year at the University of Houston where she is currently taking up a bachelor’s degree in English and working as a writing consultant at the Writing Center. When not glued to a book for the purposes of close reading for class, you can find her trying her hand at creative writing, checking out psychological thrillers and listening to everything from podcasts to musicals. Like the Rowan Foundation, she believes in a no-barriers approach to beginning a career in writing.

Naveera is interning with Houston-based literary center, Writespace.

Melinda Mayden is a University of Houston English: Creative Writing student and editor of UH's undergraduate literary magazine Glass Mountain. She enjoys writing short stories with themes of family and home, and she is passionate about quality coffee, the Oxford comma and the city of Houston.

Melinda is interning with Houston-based Night Heron Media.

Brittany Sandoval is a junior majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing. She plans to pursue a career as a writer in a variety of genres with a focus on creating disruptively thought-provoking pieces. In her spare time, she enjoys crafting, cooking, watching plays and films and dancing. 

Brittany is interning with Houston-based Arte Público Press.

Truth Thomas-Alexander is a senior at the University of Houston and majors in creative writing and minors in studio art. Her concentration is fiction, and she enjoys writing short stories. She plans on pursuing an MFA in creative writing after she completes her bachelor's degree.

Truth is interning with Houston’s Poison Pen Reading Series.

Thalia Trinidad is a senior in the creative writing department. Her passions are writing poetry, cooking, watercoloring, existential philosophy and positive psychology.

Internship: Writers in the School (WITS)