Monica Macansantos is a 2024-2025 Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas, and was recently named a 2025 Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellow at the Carson McCullers Center in Columbus, Georgia. She is the author of the essay collection, Returning to My Father's Kitchen (Northwestern University Press/Curbstone Books, May 2025) and the story collection, Love and Other Rituals (Grattan Street Press, 2022).
Born and (mostly) raised in the Philippines, her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Hopkins Review, Bennington Review, River Styx, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, and Katherine Mansfield and Children (Edinburgh University Press), among other places. Her work has also been translated into Czech (Kuřata v hadí kleci: Prague, Argo Press, 2020) and Spanish (Arbolarium, Antologia Poetica de los Cinco Continentes: Bogota, Colegio Bilingüe José Max León, 2019).
Her past honors include a James A. Michener Fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin, and residencies at Hedgebrook, Washington State; the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska; the I-Park Foundation, Connecticut; Storyknife Writers Retreat, Alaska; and Monson Arts, Maine; in addition to a Doctoral Scholarship from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and a Love of Learning Award from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. Her work has been recognized as Notable in the Best American Essays 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2016, and has received finalist and honorable mention citations from the Glimmer Train Fiction Open.
She has recently completed a novel (based on her creative writing PhD thesis) entitled People We Trust about three young people who come of age in Marcos-era Philippines, and is currently seeking representation for this novel. She is currently working on a second novel, as well as a second story collection about Filipinos at home, in the US, and in New Zealand.
Learn more about her publications and awards here.
She is the daughter of the late poet Francis C. Macansantos, from whom she inherited her love of writing, laughter, and life. You can learn more about him here.
Born and (mostly) raised in the Philippines, her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Hopkins Review, Bennington Review, River Styx, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, and Katherine Mansfield and Children (Edinburgh University Press), among other places. Her work has also been translated into Czech (Kuřata v hadí kleci: Prague, Argo Press, 2020) and Spanish (Arbolarium, Antologia Poetica de los Cinco Continentes: Bogota, Colegio Bilingüe José Max León, 2019).
Her past honors include a James A. Michener Fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin, and residencies at Hedgebrook, Washington State; the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska; the I-Park Foundation, Connecticut; Storyknife Writers Retreat, Alaska; and Monson Arts, Maine; in addition to a Doctoral Scholarship from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and a Love of Learning Award from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. Her work has been recognized as Notable in the Best American Essays 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2016, and has received finalist and honorable mention citations from the Glimmer Train Fiction Open.
She has recently completed a novel (based on her creative writing PhD thesis) entitled People We Trust about three young people who come of age in Marcos-era Philippines, and is currently seeking representation for this novel. She is currently working on a second novel, as well as a second story collection about Filipinos at home, in the US, and in New Zealand.
Learn more about her publications and awards here.
She is the daughter of the late poet Francis C. Macansantos, from whom she inherited her love of writing, laughter, and life. You can learn more about him here.
At the I-Park Foundation, East Haddam, Connecticut, November 2021. Photo credit: Lydia Blaisdell