Monica Macansantos is a 2025 Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellow with the Carson McCullers Center in Columbus, Georgia, and was a 2024-25 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Born and (mostly) raised in the Philippines, she is the author of the essay collection, Returning to My Father's Kitchen (Northwestern University Press/Curbstone Books, 2025), and the story collection, Love and Other Rituals (Grattan Street Press, 2022). She was a James A. Michener Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her MFA in Writing, and also holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the Victoria University of Wellington. She is a recipient of fellowships and awards from Hedgebrook, Storyknife Writers Retreat, the I-Park Foundation, Monson Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. More at monicamacansantos.com.