2025 DIVERSE WRITERS GRANT

Ryan Lerrik is the winner of the 2025 Diverse Writers Grant.

Since 2014, the SLF has offered two diversity-centered grants intended to foster the creation of speculative fiction work rich in diversity. The Diverse Writers Grant is intended to support speculative fiction writers from underrepresented and underprivileged groups — such as writers of color, women, queer writers, disabled writers, etc. — whose marginalized identities may present additional obstacles in the writing and publishing process.

Lerrik’s winning piece is The Definition of Yearning.

Ryan Lerrik (they/them) is a nonbinary writer living and teaching in Massachusetts. They are working on a novel-in-stories about climate change, gender dysphoria, and how bodily transformation can be both horror and freedom. Often integrating experimental and fractured forms, the novel is a meditation on language, and how finding the words to describe the impossible can shape who we are.

Their fiction appears in Prism International, Fusion Fragment, Brink, The New Plains Review, Pathos, and Hellbender Magazine. They are also an alum of Tin House, the Juniper Institute, Lighthouse Denver, and was a semifinalist for the GrubStreet Emerging Writer Fellowship. Ryan completed an MFA at Portland State University, and is pursuing an MA in English Literature at UMass Boston.

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2025 DIVERSE WORLDS GRANT

Craig Noles is the winner of the 2025 Diverse Worlds Grant.

The Diverse Worlds Grant is intended for work that best presents a diverse world, regardless of the writer’s background.

Noles’ winning piece is Murderous (Multi)Verses.

At a young age, Craig Noles fell in love with speculative fiction and its power to create worlds different from our own—places that provide an escape from reality while concurrently inviting us to reimagine the possibilities of our world. After growing up in Florida and British Columbia, Craig attended the University of Florida, where he received a B.A. in English and an M.Ed. in English Education. He later earned a B.A. in Spanish from Florida International University and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University.

Craig splits his writing time between three projects: a YA LGBTQ+ space fantasy, a YA political satire, and an adult novel told in the form of a true-crime podcast blending fantasy, science fiction, horror, and comedy. When Craig isn’t writing, he works in education. He has taught in Florida, China, and Minnesota and is currently the Director of Intervention at a Spanish immersion school in the Twin Cities metro area. He also teaches creative writing classes at the Loft.

In his free time, Craig enjoys reading, writing, lifting weights, camping, biking, and dancing.

[Based on press releases from SpeculativeFiction.org]