We are excited to announce the recipients of the 2025 Community Storytelling Fellowship, which supports nonfiction storytellers who belong to communities that are underrepresented in Oregon media. Our six fellows will each receive $5,000, and their stories will be published in Oregon Humanities magazine, on the Oregon Humanities website, on The Detour, and in partner publications.
The goal of the Community Storytelling Fellowship is to provide time, space, and resources for stories that connect people and communities. We hope the stories shared through this fellowship will allow more Oregonians to see their experiences represented, fill information gaps, and encourage readers to work toward a more inclusive and civically engaged state.
This program is made possible thanks to generous support from the Ford Family Foundation.
2025 Fellows
Meech Boakye (Portland) is a Canadian artist and writer. Their practice is rooted in collaboration, with works spanning sculpture, moving-image, publishing, workshop facilitation, and biomaterial research. Holding an Honors BA in visual studies from the University of Toronto, Boakye has exhibited work at Susan Hobbs Gallery, Gallery 44, the Art Gallery of Guelph and The Brick. Their writing has been published in C Magazine, The Globe & Mail, Mossflower Journal and Hard Pack Magazine.
Caty Lucas (McMinnville) is a Maya Chuj writer, mother, and first-generation graduate. Born in Guatemala, raised in Oregon, she earned her Bachelor's degree from Portland State University. Her professional career has been community focused work, primarily working with underrepresented communities. Caty recently embarked on a journey to self publish her first children's book, which will incorporate the Chuj language. She hopes to continue writing stories that her community and others can connect with.
Jamila Osman (Portland) is a Somali writer, multimedia artist, and educator. She has taught creative writing from Portland to Palestine, from summer camps to juvenile detention facilities, and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. She is the recipient of the 2022 Annie Dillard Award for creative nonfiction from The Bellingham Review, the 2021 Flash Nonfiction Award from Black Warrior Review, and the 2019 Brunel International African Poetry prize. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships from Djerassi, Caldera, Nawat Fes, and MacDowell. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. She is the author of the chapbook A Girl is a Sovereign State (Akashic 2020).
Katrina Thompson-Upton (Brookings) is an enrolled Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation citizen whose family descends from Day-sri~ Da-ho-tra and Day-sri~ Cha-met of the Chit-dee-ni’ and T’uu-du’-dee-ni’ who survived the Rogue Indian Wars and fought to protect the land. A mother of three, native business owner, and nonprofit founder, Katrina continues a multi-generational, off-the-grid life to uphold her family's continued occupancy on their remote ancestral homelands. Her upbringing off-reservation on ancestral lands, where she was immersed in place-based knowledge, along with her lived experience in wildfire recovery and commitment to land-based research, shapes her leadership as the executive director of the Northwest American Indian Coalition. In this role, she is dedicated to protecting Coast Dee-ni' environments, rights, and cultural heritage for Nuu-wvn srxii-xe xuu-srxii-xe hii-chu xuu-srxii-xe hii-chuf xaa-ma (for our children, their children, and their children).
Kevin Truong (Portland) is a Sundance-supported artist whose work spans photography, journalism, and filmmaking and is often centered around the queer and immigrant experiences. As a filmmaker, he has received fellowships from both the Center for Asian American Media and BAVC Media, and his work has received support and funding from the Sundance Institute, MacArthur Foundation, California Film Institute, RAAC, and the Portland Events and Film Office, among others. As a journalist, Kevin has written stories for NBC News and VICE and has worked as a producer with Student Reporting Labs at the PBS NewsHour, where he helped produce and film a series of short documentaries on misinformation.
Meg Wade (Ashland) is a writer, community organizer, facilitator, and sometimes indie bookseller based in Southern Oregon. Their work in pro-democracy and climate justice movements often centers on place-based community building as well as mobility justice issues. Their writing can be found at Unsettling on Substack and at transit2trail.com.
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