Electrifying, inspirational and fearless performances from our talented mentees and four professional, game-changing women writing today, all surrounding our Voice To Voice theme. 2015 showcased an incredible CHAPTERS reading series and a huge thank you to for helping make this happen. Learn more about our guest authors below:
is the author of the short story collection, How to Escape from a Leper Colony, published by Graywolf Press in 2010, the picture book I Am the Virgin Islands, published by Little Bell Caribbean in 2012, and the novel Land of Love and Drowning, published by Riverhead/Penguin last summer. Her writing has won the 2011 BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Fiction, Boston Review Prize in Fiction, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, and an Academy of American Poet’s Prize. BookPage listed her as one of the 14 Women to watch out for in 2014, she has been listed by the Boston Globe as one of the sixteen cultural figures to watch out for, the National Book Foundation named her as one of the 5 Under 35 in 2011, and she was just awarded the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction. Her writing has been published in Best African American Fiction, The Wall Street Journal, American Short Fiction and other places. Yanique is also the recipient of a Fulbright
Tiphanie grew up in the Hospital Ground/Round da Field neighborhood of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. She graduated from All Saints Cathedral School and the Rising Stars Youth Steel Orchestra program. Both her mother and grandmother were librarians in the Virgin Islands. Tiphanie is now an assistant professor in the MFA and Riggio Honors programs at the New School in New York City. She lives with her husband, son and daughter. They split their time between Brooklyn and St. Thomas.
For her accomplishments in the American theater and her work in the community, has been honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical, a Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical and two official Quiara Hudes Days declared in Chicago and Philadelphia. On Broadway, Hudes penned the book for the Tony Award Winning Best Musical In the Heights. Her plays include Water by the Spoonful, Elliot A Soldier’s Fugue, The Happiest Song Plays Last, and the upcoming Daphne’s Dive. They have been produced around the globe and translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and German. Amongst her social advocacy work, her favorite is mentoring at Philadelphia Young Playwrights since they produced her first play in the tenth grade. Quiara lives in New York and is the Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Writing and Theater at Wesleyan University.