Lila Hemsell Awarded 2026 Jack Hazard Fellowship!

Congratulations to Annie Wright’s own Lila Hemsell on receiving the 2026 Jack Hazard Fellowship! An Upper School English teacher, Lila was one of seven fellows selected from a large and highly competitive national pool of distinguished candidates, representing states from Washington to California.

After submitting her poetry collection, What Is Empathy But an Animal, to the New Literary Project, Lila was awarded a $5,000 fellowship to support a summer dedicated to her creative writing. The program is designed specifically for high school teachers, offering them time and resources to focus on their own literary work.

The Jack Hazard Fellowship supports the creative lives of high school educators across the United States who write fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, or poetry. Fellows must be full-time, experienced teachers at accredited high schools (Grades 9–12) during the 2025–26 academic year and committed to returning to their schools in fall 2026.

Congratulations, Lila, and we wish you a summer of inspired writing!