The Emerging Black Writers-in-Residence Program
This article was originally published in the Winter 2021 edition of the Chatham Recorder Alumni Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.
In the fall of 2020, Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program Director Sheila Squillante received a letter signed by a handful of Black program alumni. The alumni were asking for a very specific action to be taken by the MFACW program to rectify harm that they felt was caused to them while they were in the program.
“The letter-writers valued their time in the Chatham but found places where they thought we could improve,” says Squillante, who calls the letter “painful and necessary”. “One of the things they wanted to see happen was the establishment of an Emerging Black Writers-in-Residence Program – something that would create a space for young Black writers where they could feel that their talents were valued and honored, and that would also address something that I think is across the board at universities –a lack of diversity in our program, at the faculty level and the student level. These things were felt keenly by the students. I worked with the MFA faculty who were all in accord about the need for this, and with the alums and the administration, and that’s how the program began.”
The way the program works is this: each semester, the MFACW program hosts one Emerging Black Writer-in-Residence. The resident teaches a semester-long multi-genre workshop to Chatham MFACW students. They also deliver a public craft lecture, a public reading of their work, and enter into professional mentorship relationships with Chatham faculty.
The inaugural residents for the program are Chatham MFACW alumni Caitlyn Hunter and Cedric Rudolph. “We want the program to be very tailored to who the writers are as people and their professional goals,” says Squillante. “So, for example, Caitlyn is getting her Ph.D. at Duquesne University, and she has designs on becoming a professor. So a lot of the mentoring that she’s received with me in particular has been around what is it like and what you have to do to be a faculty member. We want to make sure we’re not just offering the residents a cookie-cutter experience; we want to get to know them and figure out how to help them as well.”
Squillante cites hearing voices that they don’t hear all the time as a major benefit of the program to current MFACW students.
“Both Caitlyn and Cedric bring life and professional experience to the students that is different from what the rest of the MFA faculty can provide. So on the general level, it’s always good to have more voices and participation, and besides that it’s an important part of representation. It’s important for students to see themselves represented in faces of ‘authority’.”
The program is funded through the MFA program’s budget, and the MFACW plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign in mid-September to raise more funding. “We’re also always looking for grants and opportunities,” says Squillante. “But I want to note that even if we were to find a donor who is interested in this cause, or some kind of a grant, we will always, always want to fund it partially out of the MFA program–I want our students and the alums who began this, and Chatham, and whoever comes in next to understand that the MFA program has skin in the game–that we believe in it and are committed to it.”
“I’m very grateful that the alums trusted me and the program enough that they could come forward and say these hard things and know that we would take them seriously,” says Squillante. “I feel very fortunate that we have a culture that allowed that, and I’m very, very grateful that the administration has been nothing but supportive from the beginning. My hope is that we’ll be able to grow it as we go, and the fact we’ve been able to work with two of our alums in this pilot year has been really meaningful–they’ve been able to help shape it from the inside-out.”
Q and A with Emerging Black Writer-in-Residence Caitlyn Hunter MFACW ‘15:
Can you give me a sense of what you bring to the Emerging Black Writers in Residence program?
Black Writer-in-Residence Caitlyn Hunter MFACW ‘15
As an alum, I have a unique perspective on what the program is, and some of the gaps in terms of the representation, both as a student and now as an instructor/mentor. I also have been an instructor at various institutions in Pittsburgh, so I bring pedagogical grounding. I’m getting my doctorate at Duquesne University with a focus on African American literature and culture, so a lot of my research stems around identity, politics, intersectionality*, and how marginalized identities exist and are represented within certain spaces. So one of the things about the Emerging Black Writers-in-Residence program that I find really uniquely significant is the fact that it’s a role that really allows for us to think about the ways in which Blackness manifests not just as a literary trope, but also as a creative process.
* “Intersectionality” refers to the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, and is regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
That’s interesting; can you say more about that?
I think one of the things I noticed in my time at Chatham that kept coming up in workshops was this question of authentic Blackness, and it’s something that really sat with me for a long time. Basically, one of the reasons why I’m getting a doctorate is to answer that question – what does it mean to be Black? And how does that come up as not just a research question, but as a way of being? There are a lot of experiences that inform the lens that we create in our artistic process. When race is thrown into that, there are some stories that are relatable, but also show that Blackness isn’t this monolithic thing. And in terms of my writing process, it’s been one avenue through which I can think about the way in which my personal stories sit within the frame of interrogation of Blackness also.
Why is it important for writing students to be exposed to Black mentors?
It’s a fact that Chatham is a predominantly white institution. And, as such, one of the things I’ve noticed, especially as an instructor, is that students, faculty, and staff who are Caucasian aren’t necessarily asked what it means to be white, and so they don’t have to do that larger self-reflective work of trying to translate those experiences in the same way that I as a Black writer am expected to do that work. Sometimes those requirements can instill more trauma, or they can be moments that are inherently harmful. In some ways, exposing students and the larger Chatham community to Black writing is one way of trying to take that onus off of Black writers and Black bodies.
Can you tell me about the class you taught for the program?
I taught a multi-genre class last spring, and the major theme was identity. One of the things I tried to do at the beginning of the semester was to ask students how they self-identified in a lot of different facets. All of the students said they were white, but it was really interesting when I challenged them to think about different forms of identity—class, religion and spirituality, just being students—over the semester we used a book called How Dare We Write, and what’s really nice about the book is that it’s writing from writers from marginalized communities talking about not just their writing processes, but the expectations put on them by people of color in writing spaces. And I paired that with some supplementary short stories, sometimes some experimental creative writing or personal essays that were using creative voices to interrogate those same conversations.
Can you recommend three books to our alumni who might be interested in broadening their reading?
To narrow it down to three is really tough! All right. Some formative texts for me were Heavy by Kiese Lamon, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw, and my third book would probably have to be Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall.
Click on the links to explore Chatham’s many Creative Writing program offerings, including the undergraduate major or minor, integrated undergraduate and graduate degrees, the MFA or MA graduate programs, and more.