AWP HBCU Fellowship Program

This year I was selected to be a faculty fellow in the AWP HBCU Fellowship Program. I wrote a reflection, which can be found below. The edited version was published by the Writer's Chronicle along with reflections from our creative advisor Tayari Jones, the other faculty fellows, and the five mentees.

A few months ago, I boarded a plane to LAX to join AWP Conference. It was my second time attending the conference after my first, in 2020 when I met the editor that published my first short story. The story started my career as a writer and eventually professor. I had high hopes for my time in LA and wasn't disappointed.

I landed, talked to friend and author Neesha Powell-Ingabire before I checked in, went to my room, and slept well anticipating what the morning would bring. In the morning, I went to the green couches in the convention center where I was set to meet the other AWP HBCU fellows. I met my mentees John and Veronica who were just as wide-eyed as I'd been the first time I attended the conference as a student. Tayari Jones arrived next, and I told her I'd read and enjoyed her book. We talked about gifts to give to people with the other faculty fellows Ebony Lumumba and Brittny Ray Crowell, including candles, and I was struck by how approachable Tayari was given how many books she's sold and awards she's won.

Next was the book fair. I walked around the tables and introduced myself to a few editors who I'd submitted things to. The first time I made my way into the bookfair in 2020, it felt like a foreign world, but this time around, I was happy to see a few familiar faces including CJ Bartunek and Matt Wimberly. I took some cards and then met up with the HBCU fellows again for a luncheon at a nearby Mexican restaurant.

The restaurant had an upstairs seating area where we convened, with Autumn from AWP and Regina Brooks from Serendipity Literary Agency. This is where I got to see the young minds of the HBCU students at work. Throughout the course of the luncheon, students shared their feelings on everything from the place of HBCUs in academia to their feelings on the current political administration and ways to persevere despite it. I was trying to get a word in, but they were so eloquent. I became aware that I might have been the only person in the fellowship cohort that hadn't attended an HBCU at some point. I mentioned that, even though the students are at HBCUs, they might find themselves in predominantly white spaces and that if they encountered frustrating scenarios in these spaces, they shouldn't be discouraged but should instead take it as fodder for their creative work. While being a professor at my HBCU has provided space for me to have conversations about race, gender, sexuality, and other nuanced topics that I wouldn't be able to have anywhere else, I still come from Hope Valley, a white neighborhood, and went to NYU, a PWI, for undergrad. I hope my words carried, because I believe in what I said. But it would become apparent how touched I was by my upbringing in the coming days.

The next day, after attending a panel with my mentees, the HBCU Think Tank happened. I met my colleague Dr. Nathan Dixon and couple dozen other academics for a conversation around something I've been excited about for a while. My MFA changed my life, including introducing me to Maya, Mayookh, and Ali, who I would hang out with during my time in LA. I know having one at an HBCU would do the same for many other Black writers. The conversation was productive. That night I attended an offsite readingwith my friend Michael-Julius Idani. Tayari's lecture the next day was inspirational for someone like myself who is in the processing of publishing a book. She mentioned that she'd had to hang on and believe in herself, even when things looked dark or unfair. And I realized I'd have to do the same thing. The fellowship program reception happened that night and I felt affirmed by hearing my name announced from the podium and meeting so many people who were excited to have me there.

We didn't have any events planned for Saturday. I thought it would be a good time to go to Santa Monica and pick up a t-shirt for my fiancée Elisha who turned thirty the Monday after the conference. Young Thug is her favorite rapper and there was a boutique carrying his clothing brand. I went and bought a shirt and then walked with it to Santa Monica pier where I thought I'd have a drink and look out at the waves. I walked to the end of the pier, amid refrigerator magnet stands and buskers, and saw a Latino break-dancing group beginning to set up. They taped down cardboard and instructed the crowd to gather around. They were impressive, some Olympians, who twisted and spun on their heads and hands. And then they asked myself and couple of other people to come up onto the platform. I thought they'd jump over me or something, but was surprised when they taught us some choreography, and then asked us to freestyle to the music in front of 80-100 people. I did the heel toe. And even though they'd said I had rhythm before, the MC who had been making jokes the whole time, shouted out that "for a brother, that was a white dance move." I laughed it off and even donated to their fund. But at the end of the day I was left wondering, are my dance moves white? Am I Black enough?

I met up with my mentees that night and bought dinner for them at Fixins, in LA live just after the resounding shouts had gone up in the convention center that signaled the end of the conference. They eagerly took the copies of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird that I gave them and we talked about writing and how they could carve a path forward. Seeing their eager faces in front of me cemented my connection to my community in my mind. Black is not about what someone thinks of your dance moves. It's not about where you grew up. It's about being in community and building on our collaborative strengths. That was the last thing I did at AWP with my mentees and it's what I plan to continue going forward. Is the heel toe a Black dance move? Questionable. But does sharing knowledge at AWP and at my HBCU with young Black students make me Black enough that it doesn't matter? Absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity to do so AWP!