2026 MFA in Creative Writing Final Thesis Reading
Join us in celebrating the work of our graduating second-year MFA students! Proph Dauda is a writer from Malawi. He served as the Assistant Managing Editor for the Southern Humanities Review as well as the Managing Editor for the Notre Dame Review. His fiction has appeared in Touchstone Literary Magazine & Portland Review. His Poetry was published in Querencia Press’s Winter Issue, 2025. In 2023, he served as judge for Alabama State Council on the Arts hosted competition for Auburn High School in Alabama. Daryna Gladun is a Ukrainian poet, translator, artist, and researcher from Bucha (born in Khmelnytskyi). She is the author of five poetry collections. Gladun is a laureate of numerous literary contests, a recipient of fellowships from the President of Ukraine, International Writers’ and Translators’ House, House of Europe, Staromiejski House of Culture, Potsdam University, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Leslie Center for Humanities at Dartmouth College. She participates in various international literary and art residences, festivals, and art projects in China, Bangladesh, the USA, Canada, Israel, Ukraine, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Romania, France, and Poland.​ Adalyne Perryman graduated from SUNY Oneonta. In between, she worked to put together the Adirondack Family Book Festival, bringing a list of awarded and diverse writers to upstate New York. She enjoys analyzing the connection between truth and memory in her spare time while internalizing all the beauty the world can offer! She's a big fan of a good train ride, the trees, and lakes. Helen Quah is a British poet and doctor who has lived and worked in London for the last ten years. Interested in the surreal, political and genre-shifting poetry of writers such as Kim Hyesoon, Bhanu Kapil and Don Mee Choi, her own work has appeared in British publications such as The Rialto, Magma, and The Poetry Review. She is a 2023 Eric Gregory Award recipient for her debut chapbook Dog Woman, which was published in June 2022 with Out-Spoken Press, inspired by the work of Portuguese painter Paula Rego. Rina Shamilov is a poet from Brooklyn, New York, who is excited to leave the city for scenic Indiana. Her poetry explores self, grief, family, and movement, and she writes to preserve memory and feeling. She is a nonfiction editor at MAYDAY and a managing editor at the Notre Dame Review. Her poetry has been published in The Foundationalist, Club Plum Lit, Mulberry Literary, Pink Disco, Udolpho, and other publications. She has also written nonfiction pieces for Lilith, The Forward, and New Voices, where she serves as an arts and culture editor. Adriana Toledano Kolteniuk is a writer from Mexico City who spent her formative years in the US and has been a bilingual, bi-cultural bridge-builder since. She obtained her degree in English Literature from UNAM and then spent 8 years in Chiapas, where she (re)discovered her passion for wild nature, community building, and social justice. She considers herself an ecofeminist thinker who creates verbal-affective ecosystems from a queer, neurodivergent, anti-colonial lens. Adriana is a recipient of the Fulbright-GarcÃa Robles Grant for Mexican citizens to pursue postgraduate studies in the US. Vince Vasudevan (he/him) is a multiracial speculative fiction writer interested in the intersection between literary and genre stories. A jack of all trades, Vince earned his B.A. in History at Virginia Tech and double-minored in Physics and National Security/Foreign Affairs. As a result, he has worn many different hats in industry, and is currently a first reader for James Gunn's Ad Astra. Vince is teaching at the Novel Architects Workshop this summer, led by Kij Johnson and Barbara Webb. His future goal is to be a university-level educator. Vince writes futures so he can believe in a tomorrow. https://english.nd.edu/news-events/events/2026/04/21/2026-mfa-in-creative-writing-final-thesis-reading/
