The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation

Project Title: In the Desert

Sarah Thankam Mathews is the author of All This Could Be Different, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and finalist for the 2022 National Book Award in Fiction. The novel was shortlisted for the Discover Prize and the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Vogue, The Los Angeles Times, and others. Mathews’s writing has appeared in The Yale Review, New York Magazine, Lux, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere, and was recently honored with a Lowell Thomas Gold Award for travel writing. The founder of Brooklyn mutual aid network Bed-Stuy Strong, Mathews also writes a newsletter on literature, politics, and culture.