Monica West
Fiction
Seattle, WA
Monica West is the recipient of the Alice Judson Hayes Social Justice Fellowship.
Monica West is a novelist originally from Cleveland, Ohio. Her critically acclaimed debut novel Revival Season, about a young woman’s crisis of faith in her Black Baptist family, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2021. Revival Season was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Barnes and Noble Discover selection, and shortlisted for the Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award. Revival Season also won the Christianity Today Book Award.
Revival Season was called ""spellbinding"" and garnered comparisons to Alice Walker, James Baldwin, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in its Washington Post review. The New York Times called Revival Season “atmospheric,” “layered,” and “invigorating.” Monica’s second novel, Light the Way, about a young woman’s desperate search for her missing older sister, will be published by Putnam in Spring 2027.
Monica received her BA from Duke University, her MA from New York University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow. She was a John Gardner Fellow in Fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and a 50th Anniversary Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has received additional fellowships and funding from Kimbilio Fiction, Hedgebrook, and Hawthornden.
Monica has taught fiction writing in the graduate and undergraduate programs at the University of San Francisco, the University of Washington, and the University of Iowa. She has also taught at the Community of Writers and regularly teaches creative writing courses at Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop.
Monica is also a co-founder of Black Women Write Seattle, a monthly community space whose mission is to support Black women and non-binary writers on the path to publication. Currently, Monica and her three co-founders host monthly meetings, facilitate publishing panels, and foster a supportive community space for over 100 Black writers in the Seattle area.
Monica is excited to be an Alice Judson Hayes Social Justice Fellow at Ragdale in Winter 2026 where she will work on editorial revisions for her second novel Light the Way during her residency.