Nikolis Awarded Prestigious 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship

August 14, 2026

Anastasia Nikolis, assistant professor of English, is one of 116 New York state artists to be recognized with a 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship to support her nonfiction works.

Through the fellowship, Nikolis will complete her manuscript of lyric essays about saints, media consumption, and the iconography of existential angst. She is among fellow Rochester area writers Angelique Stephens and Leila C. Nadir to receive the fellowship.

“Being named a fellow in this grant cycle’s cohort is extra special because Rochester’s unmatched writing community is so well represented in the category. Angelique Stephens and Leila C. Nadir are such talented writers who live in the area, and I’m so humbled to be honored alongside them,” said Nikolis.

Nikolis joined the faculty at Fisher in 2021 teaching creative writing, which she says inspires her own work.

“I like to think about how writing is like a machine I’m deconstructing—harvesting for mechanisms and parts that I can reuse in my next writing machine. I get even more excited when my students join me in my excitement about finding a cool new thing to try—it’s like a feedback loop,” she said.

Her academic research focuses on confession and secrecy in post-1945 American poetry, with special interest in poetry and the public humanities. In her creative writing, she explores the intersections of visual art, place, and the body. Her work can be read in Humanities, The Shore, Birdcoat Quarterly, the Tampa Review, and Arkansas International.

The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Program, administered by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) with leadership support from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), makes unrestricted cash grants to artists working in 15 disciplines, recognizing five disciplines per year on a triennial basis. Fellows are selected from across New York state by a blind jury of esteemed professionals in the writing world.

Nikolis Awarded Prestigious 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship 2026-08-14T10:59:00-04:00 Anastasia Nikolis, assistant professor of English, is one of 116 New York state artists to be recognized with a 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship to support her nonfiction works. Through the fellowship, Nikolis will complete her manuscript of lyric essays about saints, media consumption, and the iconography of existential angst. She is among fellow Rochester area writers Angelique Stephens and Leila C. Nadir to receive the fellowship. “Being named a fellow in this grant cycle’s cohort is extra special because Rochester’s unmatched writing community is so well represented in the category. Angelique Stephens and Leila C. Nadir are such talented writers who live in the area, and I’m so humbled to be honored alongside them,” said Nikolis. Nikolis joined the faculty at Fisher in 2021 teaching creative writing, which she says inspires her own work. “I like to think about how writing is like a machine I’m deconstructing—harvesting for mechanisms and parts that I can reuse in my next writing machine. I get even more excited when my students join me in my excitement about finding a cool new thing to try—it’s like a feedback loop,” she said. Her academic research focuses on confession and secrecy in post-1945 American poetry, with special interest in poetry and the public humanities. In her creative writing, she explores the intersections of visual art, place, and the body. Her work can be read in Humanities, The Shore, Birdcoat Quarterly, the Tampa Review, and Arkansas International. The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship Program, administered by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) with leadership support from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), makes unrestricted cash grants to artists working in 15 disciplines, recognizing five disciplines per year on a triennial basis. Fellows are selected from across New York state by a blind jury of esteemed professionals in the writing world.