For almost 20 years, Ani Colekessian, Artsci’07, held tightly to a dream: to one day write and publish a novel of her own. Like so many aspiring writers, the challenge wasn’t a lack of ideas or ambition. It was finding the time and space to make that dream real while balancing a busy career and a growing family.
Last year, all that changed. Colekessian applied for – and received – the 2025-26 Jean Royce Fellowship, one of three annual Queen’s alumnae fellowships now open for applications.
“Unless you’ve already published a few books, not a lot of people are willing to give you a shot like this,” says Colekessian. “This is my first book, and for years I tried to write it at the side of my desk. But until I had the financial freedom this fellowship gave me to step away from my job, it couldn’t really happen.”
ճ Jean Royce Fellowship, Marty Memorial Fellowship, and Alfred Bader Fellowship in Memory of Jean Royce are awarded annually to Queen’s grads who identify as women. Each is meant to support a year of study, research, or a project that fosters creative expression or drives progress in knowledge or society.
The application window for the fellowships is open until March 16. Full details, including how to apply, are available on the ɫƵ Alumni website.
Colekessian’s project is a work of historical fiction rooted in her own family’s lived experiences of genocide and shaped by her nearly two decades spent working in human-rights advocacy. Drawing on her Armenian family’s survival of the 1915 Genocide and her Austrian family’s complicity in the Holocaust, the novel explores the ways in which we fail to stand up to atrocity and the consequences of our silence.
Over the last year, the fellowship has given Colekessian the sustained time to focus on her writing. The first draft of the novel is now done, and she has been submitting short stories and poetry to various publications, an important step for emerging writers trying to establish their names.
“As soon as I became a full-time writer, the ideas just flowed,” she says. “It feels as though the book is writing itself and the characters are living their own lives.”
Looking ahead, Colekessian says the big goal is to publish the novel with a major publishing house, then build a sustainable career as a novelist.
“This isn’t a one-off for me. The idea is to get this book out the door, get it into people’s hands, and to keep writing more books.”
For other alumnae thinking about applying for one of the fellowships, Colekessian’s advice is simple: do it.
“Applying for something like this seems obvious as a grad student, but creatives should explore it too,” she says. “This kind of support is almost unheard of for early career artists, so if you have a project or dream that’s been sitting with you, this is a unique opportunity to keep it going or get it off the ground.”
These fellowships are made possible through the generosity of Queen’s alumni and supporters, whose giving helps make space for creative and scholarly work to thrive across the Queen’s community and the world.
Head to the Queen’s Alumni website for full details on how to apply for the three fellowships. Applications will be accepted until March 16 at 10 am.
