Meet Zanaya Hussein and Fiona Stewart, the winners of the 2020 JBWC Youth Fellowship, a program offering young writers the opportunity to develop their craft and explore professional avenues within the literary arts.
We've missed you this spring—missed sharing the excitement, the conversations, the gathering of a community to celebrate and be inspired by literature, all the things that together make BABEL the landmark literary event that it is. To give you an update, Artistic & Associate Executive Director Barbara Cole has been in close contact with our Spring 2020 BABEL authors and their agents, working to reschedule their events for a time when in-person events are again possible.
Missing BABEL? Us, too. If you’re looking for literary inspiration, here’s a roundup of links—videos, articles, podcasts, and more—featuring past BABEL authors. Learn about the books that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie loves, reads while working, and keeps on her nightstand in this “By The Book” interview from The New York Times—a quick, fun Q&A that will leave you with a ton of book recommendations.
Teaching artist Cheryl Quimba, author of the poetry collection Nobody Dancing and the chapbook Scattered Trees Grow in Some Tundra, leads writers into the liminal spaces of prose poetry (and Zoom!) in her upcoming workshop The Prose Poem on May 2. Cheryl took the time to chat with us about the workshop, what it means to be exploring the prose poem at this moment, and more.
Check out the digital version of WORDPLAY 2019: Just Buffalo's Anthology of Student Writing
Author and teaching artist Janet McNally is the author of two novels, The Looking Glass and Girls In The Moon, and a book of poems, Some Girls. She’s twice been a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in fiction, and she teaches creative writing at Canisius College. On Monday (Feb. 17), Janet’s three-session How to Start Your Novel workshop begins—an opportunity to dive into the novel project you’ve been dreaming up and find community, inspiration, and the push to keep going. Learn more about Janet and her workshop (spots still available!) in this quick Q&A.
Teaching artist Gabriel Bump has a busy 2020 ahead: his debut novel, Everywhere You Don’t Belong, hits bookshelves on February 4, he’s traveling the country on a book tour, and he’s teaching at the University at Buffalo and—lucky us!—Just Buffalo. Gabe took the time to chat with us about his upcoming Just Buffalo workshop for writers of all ages, and what’s inspiring him these days.
herry Robbins is a poet, teaching artist, and long-time yoga instructor. Her publications include the full-length collections Or, the Whale (BlazeVOX Books) and Under World, and the chapbook Snapshots of Paradise. She’s a familiar face at Just Buffalo—she’s been teaching workshops for youth and adults with us for nearly forty years. This spring, Sherry teaches two all-ages writing workshops at Just Buffalo: Tarot Writing and Falling Down, Rising Up. Learn more about Sherry and her workshops in this quick Q&A.
We were excited to learn that the Just Buffalo Writing Center is featured in Unnecessarily Beautiful Spaces for Young Minds on Fire, a new book published by McSweeney’s which highlights 34 writing centers around the world, from Milan, Italy to the lovely Buffalo, New York.
Sage Enderton began attending the Just Buffalo Writing Center (JBWC) in 2014, right when the center opened. As a matter of fact, Sage was one of the very first youth participants.