A reading and celebration with graduates of the The Muses & Melanin Fellowship for California Black Women Creative Writers. 

Featuring readings from Ariel Ward, Stephanie Teasley, Sasha Simon, Isabel N. Rendon, Amissa Miller, Sabina Letang, Linda A. Jackson, Nicole Cech and Christina Amazan.

This supportive, virtual, fully funded eight-month cohort-based professional development program designed by Lyzette Wanzer is for talented California African American, Afro Latina, and multiracial women creative writers of the African diaspora who aspire to become professional authors. 

In this pilot cohort, participants completed a comprehensive learning and support curriculum that equips them with the strategies, tools, and knowledge they need to transition from creative writing students or hobbyists to professional authors. The fellowship launches attendees into the literary profession with a series of professional development workshops, writing workshops, and co-working sessions. After writing an article, personal essay, or paper in professional manuscript format, fellows will submit their work to publications, conferences, and contests during the last four months of the program.

Lyzette Wanzer’s work appears in over thirty literary journals, books, and magazines. Library Journal named her book, Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press 2022), a Top 10 Best Social Sciences Book. 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 and Authors Guild member, Lyzette’s work has been supported with grants from Center for Cultural Innovation, San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Black Artist Foundry, The Awesome Foundation, and California Humanities, a National Endowment for the Humanities partner.