USC Dornsife doctoral writers of color showcase student work and elevate diverse voices
Doctoral students in creative writing and literature at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences celebrated the program’s writers of color for the first time Saturday during a showcase specifically designed to highlight diverse voices.
The event, held at Skylight Books in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, was organized by students of color in the Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature program to help elevate and bring together writers from across the L.A. community.
Brian Lin, a second-year student in the program and event organizer, said the idea for gathering was partially inspired by student Vanessa Villarreal’s recent Whiting Award, an award for prestigious creative writing. Lin and fellow Ph.D. student Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera decided the gathering should serve the communities that helped get them to where they are.
“Comunidad is necessary,” Reichle-Aguilera said. “You need that to keep going, and a lot of times, there’s this myth that’s perpetuated that writing has to be a solo activity.”
The students at the event expressed mixed feelings about diversity and inclusion in USC Dornsife’s creative writing and literature doctoral program.
Organizer and writer Leesa Fenderson said she was impressed with the program’s diversity, but only in recent years.
“It’s not just a diversity of skin color, but also a diversity of life experiences; people of varying ages, people of varying socio-economic backgrounds,” said Fenderson, adding that she’d like to see more writers who are differently abled accepted into the program.
Some students in the program said they feel the diversity of professors at the school helps to lessen the tension in workshop spaces and the classroom.
“I think it’s really important for writers of color, not only in California but across the nation, to see what USC’s doctoral program can offer and the diversity of the university and the program,” said Dana Johnson, associate professor of English and American studies and ethnicity at USC Dornsife.