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

Prepare to be Professional: Presenting Your Work at Public Events

January 14, 2023

Tags: creative writing class, creative writing workshops, professional development

4/30/23

11am – 3:30pm

$60

This workshop is geared for writers who are planning to participate in open mics, literary festivals, a reading series, or who will be reading their work at a writers' or humanities conference. In this workshop we will cover the myriad ways in which to ensure that reading your work to an audience helps you build your reputation as a writer and share the passion you have for your story, poem, or essay. Reading in public is one of the best ways to propel your literary career forward and get yourself invited to other events. In this workshop you will learn:

the critical but too-often-overloooked preparatory steps to take before you ever set foot in the venue
how to notate your excerpt or your piece to guide the pace, inflection, pauses, phrasing, and emphasis of your reading
how to harness stage fright and make it work for you
how to establish presence at the mic
what NOT to do at the microphone!

A laptop, tablet, or notebook computer is required for this class.

Registration closes April 26th. The registration process:

1) Email AuthorLyzetteWanzer@LyzetteWanzerMFA.com

2) Mention the workshop(s) for which you wish to register

3) You will receive a message about whether space remains in the class. If space remains, you will receive online payment instructions. Do not attempt to remit payment until you receive confirmation that a seat is available.

4) Tuition is non-refundable after April 26th.

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