Multigenre
September 17, 2026
Tiered Tuition
Reserve My Spot
About the Offering
Thursday, September 17th at 6pm (Eastern)
Lambda Literary’s Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, and Fine Arts Work Center, invite you to an evening celebrating Writers Retreat Alumni and their publications. Since 2007, the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices has supported queer writers at the threshold of their literary journeys. Writers Retreat Fellows and Alumni often go on to have successful careers in literature, by publishing books, receiving nominations and winning awards, and by passing on their knowledge through becoming instructors. This evening, we are celebrating a few Retreat Alumni who have recently published books. Help us celebrate these authors—some debut, some on their second or third publication—and see how our writers have blossomed since their time at Lambda Literary.
Materials Needed
No specific materials needed for this offering.
About the Instructor/Moderator
Lambda Literary champions LGBTQ+ writers and literature to affirm queer lives, ignite
imagination, and transform culture. We nurture emerging and established voices, amplify stories that reflect the full spectrum of LGBTQ+ experience, and build inclusive literary ecosystems that foster connection, equity, and creative freedom.
The event host and participants are:
Holly Zhou is a transdisciplinary artist and writer from the the unceded territory of the
Cahuilla and Mojave peoples. Holly's poetry and prose have been published in Foglifter, The
Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. When not writing, they can be
found exploring rocks by the ocean or in the mountains.
Osmani R. Ochoa is a queer Mexican-Xicano poet and longtime local and national organizer for
immigrant and worker rights. Their migrant futurist writing addresses themes of immigration, queerness, and borders. They won the Abode Press chapbook prize for How to Survive an Asthma Attack in a Climate Apocalypse.
Noel Quiñones is an Emmy award-winning writer of all genres from the Bronx, author of the interactive poetry collection Orange (CavanKerry Press, May 2026) and has been published in Poetry, Boston Review, Poem-a-day, and The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT anthology, as well as the Michigan Quarterly Review, for which they won the 2025 Jesmyn Ward Fiction Prize. Their short story "This Time and the Next" will be included in The Best Short Stories 2026: The O. Henry Prize Winners. They have also received fellowships from Periplus, CantoMundo, Lambda Literary, the Poetry Foundation, the Watering Hole, and the Vermont Studio Center. Noel is currently a Justice for My Sister BIPOC Sci-Fi Screenwriting Lab Fellow working on their first TV show, The Telescope.
Bobuq Sayed is a writer, organizer, and playwright of the Afghan diaspora. Their debut novel No God but Us was released in May 2026 by Harper Books in US/CA, Hajar Press in the UK, Ultimo Press in AU/NZ, and Urano Publishing in the Spanish-language market.
Julián Delgado Lopera is the author of Fiebre Tropical (Feminist Press 2020), the Winner of the 2021 Ferro Grumley Award and a 2021 Lambda Literary award; a finalist of the 2020 Kirkus Prize in Fiction and the 2021 Aspen Literary Prize. Julián is also the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! (Aunt Lute 2017) which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. Julián's work has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York Public Library, Baldwin for the Arts, Hawthornden Foundation, Black Mountain Institute, Creative Work Fund, Hedgebrook, California Arts Council, San Francisco Arts Commission, Headlands Center for The Arts, Brush Creek Foundation of the Arts, Lambda Literary Foundation and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. His work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Granta, Teen Vogue, The Kenyon Review, McSweeney's, The Rumpus, The White Review, LALT, Four Way Review, Broadly, and TimeOut Mag. Julián currently resides in Brooklyn where he is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Contemporary Latine Literature at CUNY. His second novel, Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You is forthcoming in May 2026 from Liveright, an imprint of Norton.
View all offerings
