Lyzette Wanzer, MFA

Muses & Melanin Fellowship for BIPOC Creative Writers Welcomes Its
First Class of 15 Fellows

For Immediate Release: August 11, 2024

Media Contact: Cristina Deptula, Authors Large & Small

Communications Assistant: MusesAndMelanin@gmail.com

(San Francisco, CA) – The Muses & Melanin Fellowship Program is a competitive, fully funded professional development fellowship program for creative writers of color. This virtual Fellowship is designed for women who do not yet have a lengthy list of publishing credits, are not under a publishing contract, do not have literary agent representation, and do not have a doctoral degree in English, Creative Writing, or Literature. Applicants must hold a Bachelor's degree.

Fellows complete an eight-month professional-practices program designed to advance the trajectory of their literary careers. At the program's close, fellows graduate as writers armed with the strategies, preparation, and blueprints they need to launch sustainable careers as professional authors. In its inaugural year, the fellowship was open to women writers of the African diaspora. In 2025, the program's application will be open to all writers of color. Approximately 41% of the applicants were admitted.

Fellows must complete 80% of class meetings and assignments to be eligible for the graduation ceremony. Fellows who meet this requirement will present a public reading at a formal event, receive over $200 in startup money to seed their literary bank accounts, and will be awarded certificates and a Writer's Care Package consisting of practical and fun elements.

The Fellowship extends the work that Program Founder Lyzette Wanzer, MFA began in what she calls 2020's Summer of Racial Reckoning. In the wake of the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd assassinations, Lyzette designed and taught a series of professional development workshops for BIPOC writers. Lyzette says, "The resources, networking lists, contests, residencies, and professional literary associations, approaches, and industry knowledge I share in those classes are specifically geared for us. In the publishing industry, writers of color do indeed have differentiated concerns. Muses & Melanin offers a bootcamp-style, cohort-based model that equips aspiring writers with the strategies, savvy, and skills they need to begin careers as professional authors."

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Christina Amazan, BA

Nicole Cech, MA

Dondi Dancy, MBA

Maria Antonieta Flores, MS

Camille Rose Hayes, MA

Linda A. Jackson, MFA

Sabina Letang, MFA

Amissa Miller, MFA

Roshelle Antoinette Patterson, MA

Isabel N. Rendon, BA

Sasha Simon, MPH

Stephanie Teasley, MFA

Ariel Ward, MA

Anna L. Waring, PhD

Jasmine Arianna Wynn, BA

The 2024 Muses & Melanin Fellows

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Lyzette's work appears in over 30 literary journals and books. Her book, TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press 2022) appears on Library Journal's 2022 Top 10 Best Social Sciences Books list, was a 2023 Black Women's Studies Association Selection, and an American Library Association feature title. Lyzette is a contributor to Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth from the Margins (Wayne State University Press 2023), Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area (Pease Press 2019), and the multi-award-winning The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2012).

A National Writers' Union, Authors Guild, and AWP member, Lyzette has been awarded over 10 literary grants and accepted to 10 artists' residencies across the country and in Canada. She is working on her next book, entitled Building a Career as a Literary Artist of Color.

Muses & Melanin was made possible with support from California Humanities, California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the San Francisco Arts Commissions' Dream Keeper Initiative and Arts Impact Endowment grants.

Learn more about the Fellowship's scope, requirements, and applicant eligibility.

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Workshops

Preparing for the 2023 Literary Grants Application Season

January 14, 2023

Tags: creative writing class, creative writing workshops, professional development, creative writing grants, funding for writing, creative writing fellowships

4/18/23 – 5/23/23

5:30pm – 8pm Pacific Time

Zoom and in-person

$175

*** Submission required for admission ***

NOTE: Students who've completed one of the following classes with Lyzette in 2022 do not need to apply and may register without a submission:

Building a Career as a Literary Artist (Writers.com)
For BIPOC Writers: Get Invited to Read at Literary Conferences (Muse & The Marketplace Conference)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Creative Writers (Loft Literary Center)
Lyzette's August 2022 Rooted & Written Fellowship workshop (The Writers Grotto)

All others wishing to register for this multi-week grant seminar must apply. Submit a literary resume and a link to your author website (or your author LinkedIn or Facebook profile). If you are in academia, you may submit a CV in lieu of a resume, and a faculty profile page in lieu of a LinkedIn or Facebook profile. Attach your resume as a Word, Pages, or PDF document only. Email your submissions to AuthorLyzetteWanzer@LyzetteWanzerMFA.com by April 15th, 2023.

You can secure a grant and focus on your work without the day-to-day pressure of paying bills. While there is no quick fix for securing a coveted grant, there are several strategies that position you to put your best foot forward and avoid the mistakes that other applicants make. This six-week seminar intensive is geared for students eager to learn how to increase their odds of winning grants, fellowships, scholarships, or residencies from the nation's major funding foundations. We will cover:

the best places to locate funding opportunities that are a fit for you
getting inside the minds of review panelists (what are they looking for? what turns them off?)
avoiding faux pas that mark you as an amateur and brand you as unprofessional
how to curate your application package, online presence, and personal statements to portray a three-dimensional view of you, and why this step is absolutely crucial to success
the Top 10 Tips for grant applications
the often-overlooked importance of being a good literary citizen (hint: Funders actually prefer to give money, space, and financially supported time to these applicants).

This seminar is best suited to students who are interested in securing financial support for a period of one month to one year for writing projects that will start in late 2023 or in 2024. Registration closes April 16th.

Prerequisite: Students must be computer-savvy, serious, focused, committed to completing assignments, and dedicated to the success of everyone in the seminar. Participants complete an emailed pre-work assignment prior to the first class meeting.

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