Indira Khera is a writer and journalist from Connecticut. She writes both fiction and nonfiction, and her creative work explores identity, family, landscape, medicine, and science. Khera worked previously as both a Metro Reporter for WBEZ in Chicago and as a freelance journalist supported by a Stanford Health Equity Media Fellowship. Her journalism has been published by outlets like Wyoming Public Media, NPR, Science Friday and KFF Health News. Her lyric essay “Electrocardiogram” is forthcoming in River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. Khera is currently based in Laramie, where she is in the final year of her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Wyoming. When she isn’t writing, you can find Khera spending time outdoors.
Raised in Portland, Oregon with family roots across Montana, Sam Olson writes in and about the Pacific Northwest. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Oregon State University, where he teaches undergraduate writing courses. When he’s not on campus, you can find him jogging in the Coast Range, jumping in cold water, or singing traditional folk tunes (all with his dog). Find his poems and essays in Portland Review, Bluestem, and Watershed Review, among others. To learn more, visit www.ourfeetonearth.com.
2026 Summer Fishtrap Fellowship Judging Process
Fishtrap staff screen all applications for eligibility then send the writing samples to our preliminary judges, all who were former Fishtrap Fellows and know the importance of this opportunity to emerging writers. A group of 14 finalists were selected from more than 40 applications and sent to the 2026 Fellowship judge, Nick Neely who had the difficult task of narrowing the field of candidates to just two.
Nick Neely is the author of the essay collection Coast Range, a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal for natural history writing, and the travelogue Alta California, an LA Times Bestseller detailing his twelve-week trek from San Diego to San Francisco to retrace the first overland Spanish expedition through that territory. He is a recipient of PEN Northwest’s Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, a UC Berkeley–11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship, and an AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award. He teaches at Eastern Oregon University and directs its low-res MFA program in creative writing with a special concentration in Landscape, Ecology, and Community.
