On May 15th, 2025, the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center will return to the Arts Club of Washington to mark the ninth anniversary of the Cheuse Travel Fellowship, a program that has continuously launched literary works inspired by and rooted in global research. The evening will feature readings by George Mason University MFA graduates whose funded international travels prompted their now-published and upcoming books. This collaboration between the Cheuse Center and the Arts Club serves as a celebration of these fellows and a reminder of the incredible and often beautifully unpredictable relationship between creative writing and cultural exploration. Beyond their individual narratives, however, is a deeper story—one of literary community, guidance, and the spaces and people that nurture art.
The showcase will feature work by Samuel Ashworth, Carol Mitchell, and Liesel Hamilton—three Cheuse fellows whose time abroad profoundly shaped their literary voices. From the culinary rigor of French kitchens to the familial echoes of wartime Europe and the vibrant immigrant communities of São Paulo, their stories exemplify the immersive and transformative ethos of the Cheuse Travel Fellowship.
For Leeya Mehta, the Director of the Cheuse Center, the Arts Club is more than a venue—it is a site of personal and artistic memory.
“The Arts Club is one of those spaces that is quintessentially Washington, its history a reminder of the historical complexity of any place,” Mehta says. “The first time I went into the Arts Club, I was at Georgetown studying Public Policy and our end-of-year party was held there. I worked as a research assistant for Dr. Bill Gormley, who, in addition to being a renowned academic in early childhood education, is also a jazz pianist. He played piano at the Arts Club during one of our events, and I remember thinking how cool that was. I’ve had a soft spot for the space since.”
Mehta recalls how a chance connection with community organizer Doritt Carroll—a member of the Arts Club’s Board of Governors—sparked their meaningful collaboration.
“Doritt invited me to do a reading in Silver Spring years ago,” Mehta explains. “I often recall her generosity and wonderful spirit. When Katherine E. Young, a Cheuse advisory board member, later mentioned that Doritt also ran literary programs at the Club, we sat down and created this wonderful alliance together.”
That alliance has led to several co-hosted events at the Arts Club—each supporting the Center’s mission to promote internationally influenced storytelling. Carroll, whose work at the Arts Club has helped foster literary programs with the Cheuse Center, also reflects on the inarguable value of these collaborations.
“The Arts Club of Washington has been delighted to partner with the Cheuse Center to encourage emerging and established writers whose work has an international bent,” states Carroll. “We've done several events together and it has been wonderful to explore our shared mission of promoting both the arts and a diverse range of art-making voices.”
For the fellows themselves, the Cheuse Travel Fellowship has often meant stepping into unfamiliar worlds, absorbing new languages, and translating lived experience into literature.
Samuel Ashworth, a writer and professor at George Washington University, was one of the inaugural Cheuse Fellows in 2017. He traveled to the Provençal town of Lourmarin to research the French culinary world for what would become his debut novel, THE DEATH AND LIFE OF AUGUST SWEENEY, published in 2025.
Samuel Ashworth, 2017 Cheuse Travel Fellow
“For fourteen hours a day, I cleaned squid, deboned fish, concaséed tomatoes, and ground bones for stock,” Ashworth says. “By the end, I understood the work of a professional cook—the rhythms, the language, the physical sensations—in a way I never could have, had I just relied on interviews and research.”
The novel’s reception affirmed his hands-on approach. Its New York launch was hosted by Tom Colicchio, head judge on Top Chef, who praised the work as “the only story I've ever seen about the restaurant world that doesn't make me cringe.”
Carol Mitchell, author of WHAT START A BAD MORNIN’, received her Cheuse Fellowship in 2019. She traveled to São Paulo, Brazil, to study Lebanese migration patterns to South America and the Caribbean.
“Like the best adventures, this one did not go the way I planned,” Mitchell says.
Her research began with the patriarchal narratives of immigrant families but quickly expanded.
“There would always be a woman in the room—interjecting, correcting, detailing, sharing the experiences they lived while their husbands built businesses. I realized then that I was not just interested in migration, but in how it was experienced by women—how they found independence and agency in a strange land."
Carol Mitchell, 2019 Cheuse Travel Fellow
While her current novel is set in the DMV area and centers on a woman recovering her buried immigrant past, Mitchell is also developing a new piece set in Brazil, directly inspired by her travels.
“The trip was, and continues to be, crucial to the development of my work,” she says. “A novel directly influenced by my trip is in progress, featuring Brazilian characters and set in the rich São Paulo landscape. However, that emerging manuscript focuses on a character who, like me, travels to Brazil to discover something about herself... and perhaps she will succeed!
“The Cheuse Fellowship has supported, developed, and inspired so many authors over the years, expanding their world view and putting them in positions to grow and also to touch the lives of the communities with whom they interact. My writing journey was and continues to be fundamentally impacted by my Cheuse experience and I am proud to be a part of this project.”
Liesel Hamilton was also part of the Cheuse Travel Fellowship cohort in 2017. Her award funded travel through Germany and Poland to trace her grandmother’s wartime memories, which were lost to dementia in her later years. That journey became the framework for CROSSING THE NEISSE, her memoir-in-essays.
“Three essays from my memoir have since been published, but beyond that, the fellowship fundamentally reshaped how I approach research and writing,” states Hamilton on the impact of the travel fellowship. “I learned how to conduct field interviews, take meaningful notes, overcome obstacles, and transform encounters into narrative. These skills have become central to my writing practice.”
Liesel Hamilton, 2017 Cheuse Travel Fellow
Now an instructor at the University of Florida, Hamilton continues to blend personal and environmental storytelling. Her forthcoming book, under contract with the University Press of Florida, is a collection of lyric nature essays based on her fieldwork along the Wakulla River—the last undeveloped scenic river in the state.
“Alongside this personal narrative, the book weaves in cultural, literary, scientific, and historical research,” says Hamilton. “Through these essays, I examine how immersing myself in the ecosystems around my home reveals that Florida does, in fact, have seasons,” she writes, “despite the prevailing narrative that it does not.
“The Cheuse Fellowship directly shaped the way I approached both the fieldwork and narrative structure of this book.”
The May 15th event will showcase not just books, but the interconnected lives behind them— the authors, mentors, organizers, and institutions that have invested years into making this invaluable work possible.
"The art world is full of relatively unsung patrons and volunteers who spend their personal time to create a rich life for us all,” says Mehta. “This fabric of community is critical to our region in the way that oxygen is needed to breathe. May 15th is a celebration that binds the city, the club, the center, and the Cheuse Fellowship into one large circle of community.”
For updates on additional events subscribe to the center’s newsletter at cheusecenter.gmu.edu/subscribe or visit the website.
May 05, 2025