2025 Project Award

Shane Castle, an associate professor, editor and writer, is developing a multi-genre book that explores the complex emotional terrain of his own adoption, centering themes of eros, distance, estrangement, persistent longing and spiritual homesickness. He will weave together short fiction, personal essays, oral transcriptions of voicemails, annotated texts, documents and court records detailing a crime that haunted his biological family years after he was given up for adoption.

When asked what he would like the public to know, Castle responded, “I am an associate professor of writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage, a senior affiliate editor of Alaska Quarterly Review, and a writer of literary short fiction, with work appearing in West Branch, Black Warrior Review, Santa Monica Review, and elsewhere.”