The Maurice Sendak Foundation has announced this year’s Sendak Fellows: Keiko Hayner, Angie Kang, Zahra Marwan, and Sid Sharp. The four-week fellowship, which runs from May 17 to June 13, will take place at Sendak’s former home in Ridgefield, Conn., and comes with a prize of $5,000. During the residency, artists will focus on a project of their choosing, meet with visiting artists and professionals in the field, and explore Sendak’s house and archives.
Originally from Osaka, author-illustrator Keiko Hayner moved to the U.S. in 2004. In addition to picture book-making, she has a decade of experience in early childhood education. Angie Kang is the author-illustrator of Our Lake, which received a 2026 Caldecott Honor, the Dilys Evans Founder’s Award from the Society of Illustrators, and was featured on several Best of 2025 book lists, including Publishers Weekly’s. She’s based in Los Angeles. Zahra Marwan’s artwork is steeped in her cultural roots in Kuwait and in her current home in Albuquerque, N.M. Her debut picture book, Where Butterflies Fill the Sky, was named one of the New York Times/New York Public Library’s 10 Best Illustrated Books and an NPR Best Books of 2022. In addition to receiving the Dilys Evans Founders Award, she was honored by the UN Human Rights Commission. Sid Sharp’s debut comic, The Wolf Suit, was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and was chosen as a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, School Library Journal, and the Globe and Mail. They hail from Toronto.
Sendak established the fellowship in 2009—with the help of his longtime assistant Lynn Caponera, alongside photographer and community activist Dona Ann McAdams. In Sendak’s words, it is intended as a space for artists to “create work that is not vapid, stupid, or sexy, but original. Work that excites and incites.” Previous fellows include Harry Bliss, Cozbi A. Cabrera, Terry and Eric Fan, Yuyi Morales, Sergio Ruzzier, Doug Salati, and Gracey Zhang, among others.
“Maurice loved sharing his work and the work of other artists that inspired him. We continue this with the Fellowship,” Caponera said in a statement. “Although Maurice is no longer with us, the fellows always come away feeling as though Maurice is here, guiding them in what he feels makes a great picture book. He would be delighted to have us welcome these four fellows into his world.”
