Earlier this year, we opened up applications in search of our 2026 Community Anthologies editors-in-chief. Our signature program, now in its fourth year, gives Seventh Wave’s editorial keys to curators in the community to edit and publish their own digital anthology on our site. Over the course of seven months, our EICs will work together in a cohort as Seventh Wave guides them through the process of curating their individual anthologies, each comprised of 6-8 writers and artists.
This year, we selected four anthologies, and we are so delighted to announce the selected EICs, as well as the 10 finalists, for our 2026 Community Anthologies program. Get to know these voices below.
Announcing our 2026 Editors-in-Chief
Jules Chung, Ayotola Tehingbola, Mishma Nixon, and Ines Bellina
We are thrilled to announce the four editors who will be at the helm of this year’s Community Anthologies. These four anthologies stood out to our selection committee for their timely and timeless nature, as well as the unique visions each editor-in-chief had for their particular anthology. The questions they’re posing are rigorous, thought-provoking, and haunting. We can’t wait to see the incredible work they each inspire.
- Jules Chung, editor-in-chief of “On Friendship.” Jules Chung is a former lawyer who is obsessed with the border between intimacy and friction. Jules writes about the impact of immigration and capitalism on the Korean diaspora. She recently had her story “The Hawk” performed for Selected Shorts by Tony Award winner Ruthie Ann Miles. Jules is a former Adina Talve-Goodman Fellowship finalist. Her work has been supported by the Sewanee Writers Conference, the One Story Writers Conference, T Kira Madden at Hedgebrook, Matthew Salesses via Pleiades, VONA, The Cabins Retreat, Catapult, The Queens Review, and the Seventh Wave. Currently, Jules is querying a novel inspired by her twenties and is working on a novel about love in the Second Gilded Age.
- Ayotola Tehingbola, editor-in-chief of “On Desire.” Ayotola Tehingbola is a lawyer and artist from Lagos, Nigeria. Her debut story collection, Lagos Will Be Hard For You, was shortlisted for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, and is published by Masobe Books (West Africa, 2025) and Jacaranda Books (UK/Commonwealth, 2026). Her work has appeared in The Common, CRAFT, Witness Magazine, Washington Square Review, etc., and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology. She was also selected for the 2025 Best Small Fictions anthology. She has received fellowships and support from the Alexa Rose Foundation, Hudson Valley Writers Center, the Idaho Commission on the Arts, Kimbilio for Black Fiction, and the Key West Literary Seminar.
- Mishma Nixon, editor-in-chief of “On Disappearance.” Mishma Nixon is a writer and translator from Colombo, Sri Lanka. She received her MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and will be starting her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Denver this fall. She is a McCormack Writing Center scholar and essays editor at Bombay Lit Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming at Rumpus, BRINK, Teen Vogue and elsewhere. She is currently working on a collection of surreal stories centered around the Sri Lankan Civil War.
- Ines Bellina, editor-in-chief of “On Trash.” Ines Bellina is a writer, translator, and bon vivant. Her writing has received support from the Tin House Summer Workshop, Ragdale, the Sundress Academy for the Arts, and the Wedding Cake House Residency. She was the 2020 winner of SCBWI’s Emerging Voices Award and a past DCASE Individual Artist Grant recipient from the City of Chicago. Ines is also one of the co-authors of the bilingual photography book LGNSQ and a co-translator of the centennial edition of Desolación by Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral. You can find her writing in Pit Magazine, Gloria, The Cut, Saveur, Chicago Magazine, and other major outlets, as well as in her newsletter The Cranky Guide.
The above four anthologies are now open for submissions. The deadline to submit work is July 31, 2026. To read their calls in full and submit your work to one of our 2026 Community anthologies, see here.
Announcing our 2026 Finalists
Each year, our selection committee has the challenging task of selecting just four anthologies, often from a pool of nearly 200 applications. This year was no different. Our selection committee was in awe of the work submitted; applicants delivered some incredibly pressing, insightful, and expansive applications, so we want to celebrate our 10 finalists below for their truly singular ways of seeing the world.
- Yasmine Bolden, On Refusal
- Michelle Chan Schmidt, On Touch
- Jie Cohen, On Independence
- Stephanie Cohen Xu, On Metamorphosis
- T. De Los Reyes, On Mother Tongues
- Nour Kamel, On (Mis)remembering
- Laetitia Keok + Alice Liang, On Friendship
- Terry Nguyễn + Rachel Mikita, On Witnessing
- EA Noble, On Folks
- Lisbeth White, On Villainy
Keep an eye out for these voices, as each year, we invite our finalists to write a piece on their proposed topic for our Insights column. You can see some of the pieces from previous years here.
Thank you to everyone who applied to be an editor-in-chief for our 2026 Community Anthologies. We never quite know who our calls will reach, but each year, we are reminded of the depth and breadth of topics that folks are digging into, and the power of our collective voice. We can’t wait to share our 2026 Community Anthologies with you when they publish together in January 2027, and look forward to continuing this program for years to come.
