Hilal Isler
Writer
Twin Cities
⚡️
Turkish Roots
Illustration: Kirsten Radtke for The Believer
⚡️Select Publications
Khadijah Number Two
McSweeney’s
issue 67
2022
New York Magazine
The Cut
2020
*Selected for ‘One Great Story,’ New York’s Reading Recommendations newsletter.
Wildness
2021
*nominee: The PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers
⚡️Anthologized Work
Never Forget
New Moons
Red Hen Press
2021
A creative nonfiction work on American life post 9-11, published originally in the Penn Gazette.
Scorpion
Best American Short Fiction
Alt Current Press
2023
A short story, published originally in the Baltimore Review.
On Music
Micro-essay, in promotional support of Hua Hsu’s (Pulitzer Prize winning, NYT bestselling, National Book Critics Circle Award nominated) autobiography, STAY TRUE.
TURKISH LITERATURE
Issue 16 of the Happy Reader
The literary supplement of Penguin Books International
⚡️Awards
At Yaddo, 2021. I’m in the jean jacket, top.[Photo credit]
2023-2024 McKnight Fellow in Creative Prose. Alexander Chee was the judge, & selected my novel-in-progress as the winner. I was given $25,000 & a commemorative plaque :)
2022 Periplus Fellow
2021 Yaddo Fellow
2019 MacDowell Fellow
2019 Roxane Gay Fellow
Jack Jones Literary Arts Assocation
2018 Loft Fellow
Jerome Foundation &
the National Endowment for the Arts
⚡️Older Work
⚡️Service
Being a responsible literary citizen — who gives back to the larger community — is something I take seriously. To that end, here are some ways I engage with the work of advocacy, writing, and community building:
Since 2021, I’ve been volunteering as a staff reader, working through the slush pile for the literary journal Ploughshares, run out of Emerson College.
Since 2022, I’ve been serving as a judge and reader for the Scholastic Young Writing Award-contest, held annually. I read for the state of Minnesota.