04/10/2026
🎨🖼️Working with the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund established the Baker Artist Awards in 2008 to support artists and promote Greater Baltimore as a strong creative community. The Baker Artists Awards confer $90,000 in prizes annually on six area artists across each artistic discipline. Awardees receive showcase and exhibition opportunities at major Baltimore institutions. This year’s literary finalists convene for the first time with moderator, Aaron Henkin as host, who currently works at the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University. Previously, Aaron spent 22 years creating and producing original radio programs and podcasts for Baltimore’s NPR affiliate, WYPR. Bry Reed (she/they) is a Baltimore-born and based writer committed to the legacy of “The City That Reads.” She’s a regular contributor to the Baltimore Beat. Michael Downs works in literary fiction and nonfiction, and is the author of three books. He also serves on the boards of the Baltimore Review and The Good Contrivance Farm Writer’s Retreat. Edgar Kunz is the author of Fixer (Ecco, 2023), a New York Times Editors’ Choice book, and Tap Out. He has been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Ashley Elizabeth is a Pushcart-nominated local writer & educator, focusing on history and healing. Justin Sirois is a novelist and game maker from Baltimore. He founded and runs Severed Books, a local roleplaying and tabletop game publishing company and is also the founder of the annual Game Face Convention. An additional Baker Artist Literary finalist is Don Lee.
