Summer 2022 The VONA Experience
VONA
DEADLINE: March 4, 2022, by 11:59pm PST
ENTRY FEE: $35
INFO: The VONA Experience is a spectacular week of writing workshops, professional development, panels, and community building designed for writers of color (June 27, 2022 - July 3, 2022).
TUITION:
Workshop: $1,000
Residency: $1,200
WORKSHOPS INCLUDE:
Poetry Residency with Adrian Castro - This workshop will be conducted focusing on writing about place. We will examine poems both from workshop participants and other poets that exemplify the use of place. We will also ask where is that place? Where is that physical place, that geographical place, and also where is that mental place? Is that place existent, nostalgic, dreamt, etc.? Participants will bring to the workshop poems with these themes. Feedback will be given based on the Liz Lerhman method, which focuses feedback beginning from the artist place of inspiration and creative space, then from the reader’s/listener’s perspective—i.e. what the reader thought, felt, assimilated while reading the poem. Lastly poets will be encouraged to appropriately render their poems out aloud—from their voice, their perspective, their place.
Adrian Castro is a poet, performer, and interdisciplinary artist. Born in Miami from Caribbean heritage which has provided fertile ground for the rhythmic Afro-Caribbean style in which he writes and performs. He is the author of Cantos to Blood and Honey, Wise Fish, Handling Destiny (all Coffee House Press). He has been published in many literary anthologies. He is the recipient of many awards and fellowships including from the Academy of American Poets and USA Knight Fellowship for Writing. He is also a Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine practicing in Miami.
Prose Residency with Reyna Grande - The prose residency mainly consists of individual conferences with the instructor. The conferences are designed for the instructor to give intense individual attention to the student’s work (this is not a workshop where students critique each other’s work). The topics of the noontime daily classes will include material on the writing process, on race and creative writing, and on narrative structures and other techniques in fiction and memoir. Students will be asked to do readings and some writing before the residency begins.
Reyna Grande is the author of the bestselling memoir, The Distance Between Us, (2012) and the sequel, A Dream Called Home (2018). Reyna has received an American Book award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and the International Latino Book Award. She was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards and honored with a Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. Reyna has two forthcoming books in 2022: A Ballad of Love and Glory (March 15), her first historical fiction set during the Mexican-American War, and Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings (June 7), an anthology of essays, poems, and artwork by and about undocumented Americans.
Narrative Journalism/Memoir with Roberto Lovato - This workshop is designed to explore the form and techniques of a genre whose fluid, malleable boundaries, its dynamism, and, especially, its focus on truth conditions and identity make it an ideal instrument for exploration in times of such astonishing uncertainty and confusion: narrative journalism. The filter through which we’ll study the choices made by narrative journalists are some of the defining elements of creative nonfiction, including bodily writing; scene and summary, voice, structure, and character. We will pay close attention to the choices made by writers engaged in the struggle to tell truthful stories in an age of epic, technologically-enabled lying.
Roberto Lovato is the author of Unforgetting (Harper Collins), a “groundbreaking” memoir the New York Times picked as an “Editor’s Choice” Newsweek listed Lovato’s memoir as a “must-read” 2020 book and the Los Angeles Times listed it as one of its 20 Best Books of 2020. Lovato is also an educator, journalist, and writer based at The Writers Grotto in San Francisco, California. A recipient of a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center, Lovato has reported on numerous issues—violence, terrorism, the drug war, and the refugee crisis—from Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, France, and the United States, among other countries.
Fiction with Mathangi Subramanian - What are the stories you want to tell that are unlike anything that has been told before? What are your fears about creating and sharing original work with our capitalist, white supremacy culture? How does your inner editor work with existing power structures to stifle your voice? In this workshop, we will explore our choices about perspective, tense, character, and setting, while also developing self-care-based revision techniques that allow us to bring our whole selves to the page. Students will receive feedback from the instructor as well as small critique groups within the class.
Mathangi Subramanian is an award winning South Asian American author, educator, mother, and musician. Her novel A People's History of Heaven was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and was longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her middle grades book Dear Mrs. Naidu won the South Asia Book Award and was a finalist for The Hindu-Goodbooks Award. Her essays and op-eds have appeared in The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar, The San Francisco Chronicle, Ms., and Al Jazeer America, among others. A former public school teacher, Assistant Vice President at Sesame Workshop, and senior policy analyst for the New York City Council, she holds a doctorate in education from Columbia University Teachers College.
Poetry with Cynthia Dewi Oka - This workshop engages with how displacement as a tactic of conquest alienates the displaced across time, place, language, and modes of identity. What does it mean to recover and to speak to/from/as our Othered selves? In this workshop, we will study, generate, and workshop poems through the lens of exile and errantry (in contrast/opposition to empire), as conceptualized by the poet and philosopher Edouard Glissant. Participants will be provided with and required to read Glissant's essay, “Errantry, Exile” from his book Poetics of Relation in preparation.
Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Fire Is Not a Country (2021) and Salvage (2017) from Northwestern University Press, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (2016) from Thread Makes Blanket Press. A recipient of the Amy Clampitt Residency, Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, and the Leeway Transformation Award, her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, POETRY, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, Hyperallergic, Guernica, The Rumpus, ESPNW, and elsewhere. An alumnus of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, she has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College and New Mexico State University, and with arts organizations such as Blue Stoop, Asian Arts Initiative, The Speakeasy Project, Kundiman, and the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
Comedy Writing with Zahra Noorbakhsh - Whether it’s in storytelling, stand-up, or essay, dialogue, prose, or a performance, we’re all funny some of the time. But, how do we make it happen on purpose, and often? How do we walk the line between comedy and drama? When do we take criticism and when do we tell critics to shove it? What are the tools and techniques that deliver laughs and how do we innovate in the genre? All attendees will leave with the fundamentals and guidance to master humor. Get ready to play and ready to work!
Zahra Noorbakhsh is a comedian, writer, and performer. Her award-winning podcast, #GoodMuslimBadMuslim was deemed a must-listen by O, the Oprah Magazine, and invited to the Obama Whitehouse to record an episode. She’s a Senior Fellow on Comedy for Social Change with the Pop Culture Collaborative and an Innovations Fellow with The Opportunity Agenda. Her one-woman show, “All Atheists are Muslim” originally directed by W. Kamau Bell, was dubbed a highlight of the International New York City Fringe Theater Festival by the New Yorker. Her comedy special, “On Behalf of All Muslims” debuts this year. Visit ZahraComedy.com.
Playwriting with Lisa Marie Rollins - This workshop’s focus is centered on supporting the development of your new play in progress. Part generative, part workshop, we will spend time with focused exercises to explore and articulate the imagined realm of your play, and time will be spent reading and attending to the worlds created inside your individual scripts. We’ll ask questions about worldmaking for the stage, and spend time discussing place, conflict, character, endings and explore the uses of a non-linear /nontraditional structures to support the needs of your play.
Lisa Marie Rollins is a freelance director, writer and new play developer. She is currently developing her new play LOVE IS ANOTHER COUNTRY. She is a Sundance Institute Theatre Lab Fellow (Directing), a Directors Lab Westmember and an Associate Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers. Lisa Marie recently received the WallaceGerbode Special Award in the Arts commission in which she will be working with Crowded Fire Theater to write and develop a new play to world premiere in Fall 2023. She was an Artistic Associate for Intiman Theater in Seattle (20-21) and is currently a Resident Artist with Crowded Fire Theater.
Political Content in Journalism with Teresa Wiltz - This workshop will focus on exploring race and culture as political content in Journalism. You will spend time revising and refining articles infused that elevate racial and cultural issues. Participants will receive faculty and peer feedback as they prepare a piece to pitch major market outlets like The Guardian, Mother Jones, and Essence.
Teresa Wiltz, is the author of The Real America: The Tangled Roots of Race and Identity. A Senior Editor at POLITICO magazine, Teresa launched The Recast last year, a biweekly newsletter unpacking how race and identity are shaking up politics. As a staff writer on the Chicago Tribune’s metro news desk, she was part of a reporting team that won the Grand Prize, Robert Kennedy Journalism Award for a series on murdered children in Chicago; the team also was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. During a decade at the Post, Teresa wrote for the paper’s acclaimed Style section, with a focus on cultural criticism.
vonavoices.org/summer-2022-workshops-open
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WRITERS IN RESIDENCE
Hedgebrook
DEADLINE: March 14, 2022
INFO: Hedgebrook is on Whidbey Island, about thirty-five miles northwest of Seattle. Situated on 48-acres of forest and meadow facing Puget Sound, with a view of Mount Rainier, the retreat hosts writers from all over the world for fully-funded residencies of two to four weeks (travel is not included and is the responsibility of the writer to arrange and pay for). This residency is open to women-identified writers 18 and older.
Central to what we do, our Writer-in-Residence Program supports fully-funded residencies for selected women-identified writers at the retreat each year. Up to 6 writers can be in residence at a time, each housed in a handcrafted cottage. They spend their days in solitude – writing, reading, taking walks in the woods on the property or on nearby Double Bluff beach. In the evenings, “The Gathering” is a social time for residents to connect and share over their freshly prepared meals.
Hedgebrook’s mission is to support visionary women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come. Residents must be willing to adhere to a specific set of health and safety protocols we have implemented to keep writers, staff, and surrounding communities safer. We will be following CDC and local government guidelines and recommendations for travel and in-person gathering restrictions.
Residencies for this application cycle, Cycle 1, will take place February - June 2023.
2023 WiR Genres for Cycle One:
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Playwriting
Poetry
Screenwriting/TV Writing
Songwriting
hedgebrook.org/writers-in-residence
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: RED CLAY PLAYS - SEASON 2
MOJOAA Performing Arts Company
DEADLINE: March 28, 2022
SUBMISSION FEE: $0
INFO: MOJOAA Performing Arts Company presents Season 2 of Red Clay Plays Podcast, featuring plays by Black playwrights in the American South!
We are pleased to continue our mission of championing living Black playwrights with season 2 of our podcast premiering late 2022/early 2023. Each playwright will receive two episodes. The first will be the reading of their play. The second episode will be a one-on-one interview about the playwright, their plays, their process and what it means to them to be a Southern Black playwright/theatre artist.
We are looking for four 10-30 minute plays and monologues written by Black playwrights currently living in NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, TX, AR, LA and VA OR Black trans playwrights living in the US with connections to the South.
GUIDELINES:
Plays must:
Be written primarily in English
Be able to be performed by 4 actors (double casting is an option)
Work as reader's theatre
Have the rights for all material in the play
Each playwright can submit up to 30 minutes worth of work. One 30-minute play, 2 15-minute plays, 3 10-minute plays, etc.
We are especially looking for plays written by trans, non-binary, genderqueer and women playwrights. And when we say Black playwrights we mean ALL BLACK PLAYWRIGHTS. We invite all your intersections and identities. You retain full rights to your work.
COMPENSATION: Playwrights will be paid $100 for participation.
Please send all submissions and questions to MOJOAApac@gmail.com or apply via New Play Exchange. We can't wait to read your work
mojoaa.org/#auditionsandsubmissions
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The Thousand Miles Project
Coverfly
DEADLINE: March 31, 2022
ENTRY FEE: $0
INFO: The Thousand Miles Project is open to writers who are passionate about telling Asian and Pacific Islander stories. They’re accepting Features, TV Pilots, Shorts, Web Series, Short Stories, Book/Manuscripts, Stage Plays, Graphic Novels, and Articles
We at The Thousand Miles Project are committed to h elping emerging writers tell their stories and jumpstart lasting writing careers in the entertainment industry. In partnership with Universal Content Productions (UCP) and writer/producer Soo Hugh (The Terror, Pachinko), the program will provide up to 20 writers/writing teams the opportunity to learn about television writing and the industry through panels and lectures with writers, development execs, managers, and agents in a two-day intensive virtual workshop.
After the workshop, participants will be invited to apply for a 24-week development lab by submitting a series idea for further development. Television project proposals in any genre are welcome. We are interested in narratives told through the lenses of any Asian and Pacific Islander community (all Asian or Pacific Islander countries or cultures). From those proposals, up to 3 writers/writing teams will be selected to join the development lab with Soo Hugh, her team and UCP to write a pilot script and potentially develop their project further with UCP. The lab writers will meet on a bi-weekly basis, with additional monthly meetings with Soo and her team.
BENEFITS:
Workshop Participants - Up to 20 writers/writing teams will be invited to free virtual workshops to learn about television development and career strategies from writers, showrunners, managers, agents, and studio execs.
Virtual Workshop dates will be June 11, 2022 and June 18, 2022.
Development Lab Writers - Workshop participants will be invited to apply for the development lab by submitting additional materials by August 1, 2022, which are currently contemplated to include:
Short answers to a series of questions regarding their series concept
An artistic statement of intent about themselves (750 words or less)
Up to 3 writers/writing teams who participated in the workshops and submitted series development ideas will be selected to participate in a 24-week paid development lab. With guidance from Soo and her team, plus peer-to-peer feedback, writers will write a pilot. Selected writers are expected to fully participate by giving support and feedback to each other in the lab.
Writers/writing teams from the lab may be invited to further develop their project with UCP after the development lab is completed.
If UCP chooses not to further develop a project from the lab, UCP will give the rights to the applicable script back to the writer/writing team (and UCP will no longer continue to own it). Further details, and an agreement, will be provided to writers/writing teams selected to participate in the lab.
ELIGIBILITY:
Applicants must be at least 18 years old at the time of their application.
Applicants can be from any country or background.
Applicants must have a strong proficiency in English.
Applicant’s participation in the 2-day workshop (and lab, if applicable) must not violate any other obligations applicant may have at law, pursuant to contract, or otherwise.
To participate in the development lab, applicants must be legally authorized to live, work and participate in the lab in the United States.
Applicants must be available to participate in the 2-day workshop and lab (if applicable): Workshop is currently scheduled for June 11, 2022 and June 18, 2022, for approximately 8 hours each day with hours based on the Pacific Time Zone. Confirmed dates and time will be provided.
If selected for the development lab, applicant must execute a standard writer agreement, and other required documentation, in order to participate.
Writing teams can be no more than 2 writers. Each writer must submit a separate application.
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CALL FOR BLACK PLAYWRIGHTS: A DIFFERENT MYTH NEW WORKS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective
DEADLINE: Rolling
INFO: A Different Myth is proud to foster emerging Black Playwrights in the development and production of powerful new plays which entertain, inform, and enlighten audiences, and deepen their awareness of Black joy. A Different Myth offers playwrights a chance to develop their work with experienced mentors, directors, actors, and eventually an audience.
This is a rolling submission with no deadline. Once Playwrights are accepted into the program, the developmental process will be tailored specifically to the individual Playwright. This may include dramaturgical or analytical mentorship, access to directors and actors, and any combination of private and public readings. There is no financial cost to the Playwright; payment for all artists and developmental staff is included in the program. The process will last as long as it takes for the play to be finished. Once the play is finished, the Playwright will receive a $1,000 honorarium and the play will be scheduled for professional production by Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective.
Different Strokes! Performing Arts Collective is a non-profit performing arts organization committed to making theatre, building community, facilitating awareness, and changing the world one play at a time. Different Strokes! appreciates the value of empathetic and thought-provoking theatre as a profound and effective means to social change and transformation. Stephanie Hickling Beckman has been active in theatre for most of her life, as an Actor, Stage Manager, and Director. As the Founder and Managing Artistic Director for Different Strokes!, Stephanie is committed to directing and producing theatre that expresses the diversity we encounter in our everyday lives and finding ways to recognize and honor our differences in a safe and positive environment.
differentstrokespac.org/5191-2/