VONA Announces Stellar Faculty for its Summer Workshop at the University of Miami

VONA/Voices invites writers-of-color to submit their application to its premier summer workshops to be held at the University of Miami: Week One - June 21 to June 27, Week Two - June 27 to July 4.

Their 21st year introduces exciting additions to the already impressive list of offerings: Journalism with Valerie Boyd, Flash Writing with Nathalie Handal, and TV &Screenwriting with Queen Sugar, season four, Co-Executive Producer/Writer, Valerie C. Woods. These new workshops are offered partly in response to a surge in the demand for more writers-of-color following the success of TV shows like Queen Sugar and movies such as Black Panther and Get Out. They highlight the powerful and educational impact of representation on audiences.

According to Interim Executive Director, Nívea Castro, “As the only multi-genre workshop for writers-of-color in the United States, VONA is grounded in social justice and the fostering of an inter/national community of writers of color. VONA cultivates the open and honest expression of personal and political writing that is too often marginalized. Each year we attract participants from all over the globe because we provide a space where emerging writers’ work is centralized, and where they can flourish with renowned writers-of-color in an environment that is safe, nurturing and supportive.”

VONA is pleased to offer a memoir workshop with newcomer Jaquira Díaz (Ordinary Girls), a poetry residency with the author of three collections of poetry and Miami native, Adrian Castro, LGBTQ Narratives by one of our inspiring alums and the author of Say Mirror, JP Howard, a poetry workshop with 2008 American Book Award winner, Jericho Brown. They also welcome back Staceyann Chin, (Crossfire: Litany for Survival) in Political Content, Mat Johnson, (Loving Day) in Fiction, and Daniel José Older (Leaving India) in Young Adult Literature and Shay Youngblood in Graphic Novel.

Returning Core Faculty are Reyna Grande in Memoir, Faith Adiele for Travel Writing, Tananarive Due in Speculative Fiction, David Mura in Prose Residency, Willie Perdomo in Poetry, and M. Evelina Galang in Fiction.

In their third year at the University of Miami, VONA has found a home where diversity is valued. The MFA Program in Creative Writing is among the most diverse in the country. In addition, Miami the city, is a vibrant confluence of native and immigrant cultures that intersect in meaningful ways. The support and sponsorship from the Departments of English, History, Philosophy, Modern Languages and Literatures, and Religious Studies have been a vital lifeline for VONA.

The VONA/Voice writing workshops have been life-changing for many of the 2400 writers who have attended in the past twenty years. For JP Howard, “Our stories, our narratives, and our voices are necessary and powerful. VONA’s impact on my own writing craft has been transformative, both as a black queer writer and as an educator; I encourage all those who I teach, including myself, to consistently bring all the unique, complicated and often hidden parts of ourselves to the page.”

Our programming expanded this past year with the introduction of the VONA ACROSS THE COUNTRY (VATC) workshops. Created by VONA co-founder and former Program Director Elmaz Abinader, VATC is designed to offer at a low cost, a one or two-day “taste of VONA.” These generative intensive workshops are located where writers live and are taught by members of our renowned Faculty. In 2019, 65 writers attended VATC across nine cities: New York, Santa Fe, Minneapolis, NOLA, Pasadena, Oakland, LA and Woodland, CA.

Interim Program Director, Wendy Angulo, applauded VATC workshops success. “Expanding our community and attending to writers-of-color needs is essential to the impact VONA will continue to have on the literary landscape and including the harder-to-reach communities is vital to the development of our organization and at the core of our mission.” More cities are being planned for 2020-2021.

For information on the Summer 2020 workshops, please go to VONA’s website at www.vonavoices.org. The application process is now open with a February 15, 2020 submission deadline.

For interviews and more information, contact: info@vonavoices.org or executivedir@vonavoices.org