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Voices Of Our Nation Arts Foundation
Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) is a written arts organization that was founded in 1999 by Pulitzer-prize winning author Junot Diaz, along with award-winning author Elmaz Abinader, Víctor Díaz and Diem Jones in order to provide emerging writers of color with workshops and mentoring by established writers of color. Since its founding, over 2,000 aspiring writers from around the world have been involved in their programs. History Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation came about when Junot Diaz was pursuing his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at Cornell University in New York City. After completing his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Diaz went on to become a published writer and joined together with fellow writers of color: Elmaz Abinader, Victor Díaz and Diem Jones to create the first writing workshop for people of color to be held in San Francisco. The goal of the workshop was to provide an environment where writers of color could share their work in a safe and supportive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creative Writing
Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or with various traditions of poetry and poetics. Due to the looseness of the definition, it is possible for writing such as feature stories to be considered creative writing, even though they fall under journalism, because the content of features is specifically focused on narrative and character development. Both fictional and non-fictional works fall into this category, including such forms as novels, biographies, short stories, and poems. In the academic setting, creative writing is typically separated into fiction and poetry classes, with a focus on writing in an original style, as opposed to imitating pre-existing genres such as crime or horror. Writing for the screen and stage—screenwriting and playwriting—are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tayari Jones
Tayari Jones (born November 30, 1970) is an American author and academic known for '' An American Marriage'', which was a 2018 Oprah's Book Club Selection, and won the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, the University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is currently a member of the English faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences at Emory University, and recently returned to her hometown of Atlanta after a decade in New York City. Jones was Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-large at Cornell University before becoming Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University. Early life and education Jones was born and raised in Cascade Heights, Atlanta, by her parents Mack and Barbara Jones, who both participated in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Both of her parents went on to obtain PhDs in social sciences and became professors at Clark College. Her father taught political science at Atlanta University, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organizations Based In Florida
An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from the Greek word ''organon'', which means tool or instrument, musical instrument, and organ. Types There are a variety of legal types of organizations, including corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, political organizations, international organizations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and educational institutions, etc. A hybrid organization is a body that operates in both the public sector and the private sector simultaneously, fulfilling public duties and developing commercial market activities. A voluntary association is an organization consisting of volunteers. Such organizations may be able to operate without legal formalities, depending on jurisdiction, incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African-American Organizations
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West/ Central African with some European descent; some also have Native American and other ancestry. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not self ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arts Foundations Based In The United States
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both highly dynamic and a characteristically constant feature of human life, they have developed into innovative, stylized and sometimes intricate forms. This is often achieved through sustained and deliberate study, training and/or theorizing within a particular tradition, across generations and even between civilizations. The arts are a vehicle through which human beings cultivate distinct social, cultural and individual identities, while transmitting values, impressions, judgments, ideas, visions, spiritual meanings, patterns of life and experiences across time and space. Prominent examples of the arts include: * visual arts (including architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, and sculpting), * literary arts (includi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonia Guiñansaca
Sonia Guiñansaca (born in Cuenca, Ecuador in 1989) is a migrant poet, cultural organizer and activist whose work aims for culture equality and social justice, focusing on migrant rights, climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, and gender discrimination. Background Guiñansaca migrated from Ecuador to Harlem at the age of five to reunite with her parents, who were undocumented. After graduation (Hunter College with a BA in Africana Puerto Rican Latino Studies and Women and Gender Studies) with her background in organizing migrant undocumented communities, she determined that not only policy but art and culture play crucial roles to bring social changes. Since 2013, she worked at Culture Strike as the managing director, an American organization with more than 200 artists of multiple disciplines working for a social change acknowledging and supporting queer, transgender, women, color, migrant emergent artists. In particular, she created the first writing workshops by and for undocumented wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ZZ Packer
Zuwena "ZZ" Packer (b. January 12, 1973) is an American writer. She is primarily known for her works of short fiction. Early life and education Born in Chicago, Illinois, Packer grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and Louisville, Kentucky. "ZZ" was a childhood nickname; her given name is Zuwena. She was recognized as a talented writer at an early age, publishing in '' Seventeen'' at the age of 19. Packer is a 1990 graduate of Seneca High School, in Louisville, Kentucky. Packer attended Yale University, where she received her BA in 1994. Her graduate work included an MA at Johns Hopkins University in 1995 and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop of the University of Iowa in 1999, where she was mentored by James Alan McPherson. Career Her work was first published in the Debut Fiction issue of ''The New Yorker'' in 2000. Her short story in the issue became the title story in her collection ''Drinking Coffee Elsewhere''. As ''Publishers Weekly'' put it, "this debut short story collec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minal Hajratwala
Minal Hajratwala (born 1971) is a writer, performer, poet, and queer activist of Indian descent. She was born in 1971 in San Francisco, California, US, and was raised in New Zealand and suburban Michigan. She is a graduate of Stanford University. Career She is the author of ''Leaving India: My Family's Journey From Five Villages to Five Continents'' (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), which Alice Walker has called "incomparable," and ''The Washington Post'' has characterized as "searingly honest." She researched and wrote the book during a seven-year period, traveling the world to interview more than 75 members of her extended family. Hajratwala's creative work has appeared in journals, anthologies, and theater spaces and has received recognition and support from the Sundance Institute, the Jon Sims Center for the Performing Arts, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, the SerpentSource Foundation, and the Hedgebrook writing retreat for women, where she serves on the Alumnae Leadership Coun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valerie C
Valerie may refer to: People *Saint Valerie (other), a number of saints went by the name Valerie *Valerie (given name), a feminine given name Songs *"Valerie", a 1981 song by Quarterflash, from ''Quarterflash'' *"Valerie", a 1982 song by Jerry Garcia from ''Run for the Roses'' * "Valerie" (Stevie Winwood song), a 1982 song by Steve Winwood from ''Talking Back to the Night'' *"Valerie", a 1986 song by Bad Company from ''Fame and Fortune'' *"Valerie", a 1986 song by Joy from ''Hello'' *"Valerie", a 1986 song by Richard Thompson *"Valerie", a 1993 song by Patti Scialfa from ''Rumble Doll'' *"Valerie", a 2002 song by Reel Big Fish from '' Cheer Up!'' * "Valerie" (Zutons song), a 2006 song by the Zutons from ''Tired of Hanging Around''; covered by Mark Ronson, with lead vocals by Amy Winehouse *"Valerie", a 2011 song by the Weeknd from ''Thursday'' *"Valerie", a 2020 song by Bladee from ''333'' *"Valleri", a 1968 song written by Boyce and Hart for the Monkees *"La Valéri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tananarive Due
Tananarive Priscilla Due ( ) (born January 5, 1966) is an American author and educator. Due won the American Book Award for her novel '' The Living Blood''. She is also known as a film historian with expertise in Black horror. Due teaches a course at UCLA called "The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival and the Black Horror Aesthetic", which focuses on the Jordan Peele film ''Get Out''. Early life and education Due was born in Tallahassee, Florida, the oldest of three daughters of civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due and civil rights lawyer John D. Due Jr. Her mother named her after the French name for Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.''Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights'', by Patricia Stephens Due and Tananarive Due (Ballantine, 2003) Due earned a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and an M.A. in English literature, with an emphasis on Nigerian literature, from the University of Leeds. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiese Laymon
Kiese Laymon (born August 15, 1974, Jackson, Mississippi) is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is the author of three full-length books: a novel, ''Long Division'' (2013), and two memoirs, ''How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America'' (2013) and the award-winning '' Heavy: An American Memoir'' (2018). Laymon was awarded a "Genius Grant" from the MacArthur Fellows Program in 2022. Early life and education Laymon was born and raised in Mississippi. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Oberlin College, and his Master's in Fine Arts at Indiana University. He also attended Jackson State University, where his mother worked as a political science professor, and Millsaps College, where he was suspended for a year after taking a library book without checking it out. His suspension followed ongoing criticism from the administration, including president George Harmon, who believed his cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reyna Grande
Reyna Grande (born 7 September 1975, Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico) is a Mexican author living in the United States. Biography Grande grew up in poverty with her two siblings in Iguala, Guerrero. When she was under five years old, her father moved to the U.S. to earn money to build a house in Iguala but wasn't successful. He called for Grande’s mother, who left Grande and her siblings with their paternal grandmother. Her father later returned to take her eldest sibling to the United States, but Grande and her other siblings wanted to go as well. Thus, Grande traveled to the U.S. as an undocumented child immigrant via an illegal border crossing at the age of about 9. She went on to become the first in her family to obtain a college degree. Grande attended Pasadena City College and later transferred to University of California, Santa Cruz, where she obtained a B.A. degree in literature/creative writing. She later received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Antioch University. She ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
