2025 Digital Residency Spotlights

“The richness and sensitivities in our stories lead the call to offer care and dignity to one another. When we honor each other’s stories, we lay the groundwork for the world we dream of and believe in.”

“I approach the page every time knowing I choose to speak, I choose to share my truth, and there is always space, time, and an audience that are seeking and needing voices like mine.”

“Our younger selves need us to do this work. They are waiting on us to feel our anger deeply. They are waiting on us to free their shame.”

“I think I largely write for myself to stay alive, and I bring all of my friends and selves into the room when I write.”

“Writing was something that i held tight and as free of institutional compressions and extraction as i could, but in that grip, it wasn’t growing.”

“More than ever before, except for maybe when I was a kid, I allow myself to get to the blank page with excitement, hope, ambition, but not that much expectation or pressure.”

“Diasporic writers must use our privilege for good, especially the privileges we did not ask for but are nonetheless afforded by the nature of being in diaspora in the West.”

“A question my work is asking of the reader is do you want to be healed and how? How do you heal? Who do you walk alongside when you walk with your community?”