The Writers Well Youth Fellowship is a year long artist fellowship for black girls ages 14-19. The fellowship begins with a 4-day overnight writing retreat which includes guest speakers, roundtables, and workshops centered on writing, social justice, and empowerment. Together, we work to build foundation and community among black girls, including writing mentorship and healing workshops.
The Why?
The 2008 Pew Research Center study “Writing, Technology, and Teens” found that 47% of black teens write in a journal, compared with 31% of white teens. In the more recent Pew Research Center Study, “A Snapshot of Reading in America in 2013”, it was found that college educated African-American women are the largest group of readers in the country. However, we also know that that there has been extensive discussion and research about the lack of diversity in Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) programs and publishing. Gay (2012) found that white authors wrote 90% of books reviewed by the New York Times and that there were 14 tenured or tenure-track writers of African descent out of the 262 tenured or tenure-track faculty teaching in the top 50 MFA-fiction programs in the United States as defined by the 2012 rankings in Poets & Writers magazine.
We believe that a partial reason for why black teens writing more than white teens outside of the classroom does not translate into more diversity in publishing and MFA programs is a correlation to a lack of nurturing and mentorship for young black writers. Toni Morrison tells us so many times of how writing, and especially writing for black women and girls, is healing and transformative for both the writer and our world:
We believe that a partial reason for why black teens writing more than white teens outside of the classroom does not translate into more diversity in publishing and MFA programs is a correlation to a lack of nurturing and mentorship for young black writers. Toni Morrison tells us so many times of how writing, and especially writing for black women and girls, is healing and transformative for both the writer and our world:
Funding Partner
