Left to right: Michael Carson, Joel Cuthbertson, Tom DeBeauchamp, Abigail Dembo, Maja Lukic, and Paul S. Ukrainets.
It is with great excitement that we announce the finalists for the twelfth annual New England Review Award for Emerging Writers: Michael Carson, Joel Cuthbertson, Tom DeBeauchamp, Abigail Dembo, Maja Lukic, and Paul S. Ukrainets.
The New England Review Award for Emerging Writers provides a full scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in August 2026 and is given annually to an emerging writer who offers an unusual and compelling new voice and who has been published by NER in the past year. The winner will be announced in April.
Congratulations to our six finalists! We are proud to have published such strong work from emerging writers in 2025.
Michael Carson was deployed to Mosul with the U.S. Army in 2006. He now teaches at a community college in Baytown, Texas, and edits The Wrath-Bearing Tree, a literary journal that publishes art about military service, trauma, and the resulting mental and emotional health challenges. His recent work has been published or is forthcoming in New England Review, The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, New Letters, The North American Review, and elsewhere.
Joel Cuthbertson is a writer and librarian from Denver. His short stories and essays have appeared in New England Review, Electric Lit, Joyland Magazine, LitHub, and more. He received his MFA in fiction from Syracuse University.
Tom DeBeauchamp lives in Portland, Oregon, where he runs a very popular public book club. He is a graduate of the Portland State University MFA program, has published his writing in New England Review, DIAGRAM, Full-Stop, The Rupture, and elsewhere, and spends his evenings and weekends wrenching on his first novel, a demonic melodrama of music, families, and mystical experience.
Abigail Dembo lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Poetry Review, Oxford Poetry, The Paris Review, The Threepenny Review, The Best American Poetry, and other places.
Maja Lukic holds an MFA in poetry from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in New England Review, West Branch, Narrative, A Public Space, Copper Nickel, Image, Bennington Review, Brooklyn Poets, The Adroit Journal, Colorado Review, The Slowdown podcast, and elsewhere. Links to pieces published online are available at majalukic.com. Currently, she serves as assistant poetry editor at Narrative and as editor of Four Way Books’ Translator’s Page.
Paul S. Ukrainets is a post-Soviet poet and translator living in Oakland. Their poems appear or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, protean, New England Review, the tiny, and elsewhere. They received their MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and support from the Goodhart Artist Residency, Poetry at Round Top, and the Patricia Cleary Miller Award. They believe and work toward a free Palestine.