[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, everybody. When martine. Good afternoon. Youve enjoyed the three days weve had here. You know, my Third Straight year of coming and nature they try to offer a great selection of poetry and discussions, film. Thank you so much are coming to join us. The reception last night, the presentation we had the honorary chair last night. The honorees were [inaudible] and woody king junior. Their messages were very inspiring and really got people fired up. I hope you got a chance to see it. Todays the last day of the conference we want to make sure we have a good time today. This is a black literature and the topic we have come in today. My name is patrick oliver. I thought of the readers and writers raised in chicago, illinois. We supported and not of projects, to encourage young people to become the next generation of individuals who may be at the conference monday. Check us out and speak loudly. Com. Its also my pleasure to be the emcee here to share with you all these wonderful things we have again happening here at this conference founded in 1986 and the center for black literature has continued in a tradition of making sure confidence is one of the most talked about conferences in the country as well as the scholars and thinkers that we bring to the conference each year and the space where we can talk about our culture, history, politics, social issues that pertain to the black experience. We are glad you are here. Again, came back for coming to the conference, a success been a part of it is very, very important that you are here and we want to talk about some of the folks that weve supported over the years. Schaumburg center for research, press university and i hope we got a chance to support them. Sisters uptown bookstore is the official bookstore for this project are conference. We think its important that we continue to encourage pad support the writers here to continue sharing the message with fran about the great time you had here at this conference and keep in mind, we want you to keep pushing in this digital age that we are written right now. Keep pushing the written word. Keep pushing and turning the page and keep in mind of young people as well as adults. Thus keep them moving. One highlight about the program today is going to be what we will have put the Schaumburg Center and we will miss him at the schaumburg and hes leaving not pose. We have a lot going on. I want to make sure also, lets treat to your friends that we have on facebook. Thats good enough social media because we have an exciting day going today. I want to share was going on. Our first panel for the day im excited about the writing program and writing of color. Kernan feature trends. Thank you get good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the 13th National Black writers conference. I want to thank everybody for joining us here today. I know that this panel will be enlightening, may throw some shade, but it will be enlightening nonetheless. I hope you had an opportunity to attend some of the other workshops that have been happening over the course of the weekend and that are going on for the rest of the day today. What i want to do is introduce our very distinguished panel and they are going to be sharing their ends ties, their experience is in their vision as well as answering as many of your questions as possible at the end of our session. So first we have bernice mcfadden. She is the author of nine critically acclaimed novels in limiting sugar, loving donna finn, nor is the place are the warmest december, one of my favorite comic gathering of waters which was in New York Times editors choice and one of 100 notable books of 2012 as well as glorious, which is featured in o magazine and a finalist for an image award yet she is a threetime person legacy Award Finalist as well as the recipient of three awards in bca l. A. Ms. Mcfadden is in brooklyn in her latest book is the book of heartland. Then we have maria edessa. She had to write that out fanatically for me to be able to tell you what her name was. We are going to call her maria to make it easy on all of us, me especially. Shes author they are continuing poet crafting liberation, which was listed as one of the books they love and common for dutch. Shes a poetry editor of the magazine african voices. The work is the subject of a short film. I leave my colors everywhere. Her essays and poetry have been published in the black renaissance in the poet. She earned her mfa from Mills College in 2002. Last but certainly not least, described in this statement has this statement is undoubtedly one of the finest poets in contemporary time. Shes the author born in india, raised their and at the age of 18 when to england to study their poetry include a literate heart, winner of the 10 open book awards, and she is the editor of indian love poems and not for the critically acclaimed memoir fault line. She has received awards from the guggenheim, fulbright and Rockefeller Foundation to our council of england and awards from south africa. Shes the author of eight books with poetry, two novels in the two volumes of essays in the memoir fault line which was published weekly book of the year. Her poetry has been trends rated. Most recently by the swedish composer jan sandstrom. Shes a distinguished professor professor at the Graduate Center of your neck. Welcome to i guess. Thank you very much for being here. [applause] thats pretty impressive. Before we get started, what i want to do is kind of set the table to bring some context to what it is we will be talking about today. This particular panel is bar none of several essays written on the topic of marginalization of student of color and msa in the Publishing Industry in general. Gina diaz for the new yorker in which he writes about his experience as an mfa student at cornell university. In my workshop, what was to send it was not the writing of people of color ,com,com ma but the right of white writers to write about people of color without critiquing and the critiques of people of color. His message was that the program was to why. Then ultimately 20 years later, not much has changed. So that is the foundation which our discussion will stem from today. I want to put the first question to maria. She earned her mfa at Hills College in 2002. What was your expert patient and what were your conclusions coming out. Thank you. Thats interesting. When i went to melt, one of the things about me with before it went into an mfa program, i was already the part of a really vibrant community of writers. That is one of the big differences between me and a lot of folks about msa programs initially. I was doing my poetry. I was here in brooklyn at the brooklyn moon. I had people and i have mentors. I had folks who are already looking out for me. Cheryl boyce taylor and massive african voices. There is a community for me. So when i went to mels, i went there because i felt i needed to learn the more and i wanted to go to the west coast. Im being honest with you. The other thing sounded like i needed to get another degree in order to open certain doors. And i was didnt teach him and those are my reasons for going. So when i applied, i applied in poetry and fiction. My poetry is blatantly political and so i didnt get into their Poetry Program. I found out later its a very experimental type of poetry that they really champion. I did get into the fiction program, however. And so there were no black faculty. There werent any. There werent any teaching at that time. I think that to the bow came later, but as a guest, not as fulltime. My entire time in workshop i did not have a black professor in workshop. In other courses they did, but it sure classes and things like that. And ill not have major or a memoir, which is something i took largely because she was teaching at. I wanted to have someone whom i did then in a similar vein. And so that was my experience. I was one of the only people. I think i was actually the only black woman, black person in my workshops in two out of the three of the workshops and i showed up in some interesting ways which we can talk about later. All right, cool. Bernice, you are currently taking your msa at st. Josephs. Youd already established as an author before you took the course. What was your goal in attending and what has your experience been . Good afternoon. So i was encouraged by some mentors who are to teach in academia to go and get my msa. I realized that if i wanted to teach on the collegiate level, i would probably need that. Not everyone does, but the way i look, i do. So it was really for the credential. Was the second car . [inaudible] my experience. In my program theres about four people of color. One experience really comes to mind when all of the racial upheaval is going on with our black men getting shot down in the street, obviously that sounded way into the classroom and we discussed it and i found that a lot of the ways didnt did not want to discuss it. Some of the youngers dunes just came out and said simply i dont understand it, so i dont have this conversation because i dont understand it. Most recently, in i wrote an essay about the prison issue about lachman being sent to prison and how there more black men in prison than were slaves in 1850. I focused on three companies that are profiteering from the system. One of the lines says that the head of each of these companies are white males, just like it was during the plantation system. The young lady who was assigned to edit my piece, is also in the mfa program, she asked if i would remove that line. So my response was im not going to remove it, but id like to know why you feel it needs to be removed and im still waiting on that response. So that is the next variant. I was lucky and not an article in poet and writers. It is the ranking that was done in 2012 that states nearly all professors of mfa programs were white. Theyre just 14 tenured writers about 13 of the 262 tenured or tenuretrack faculty in the past 50 programs in the United States so as a distinguished, not just professor, but a distinguished professor at the graduate of hunter. You do with creative writing classes. Why does the lack of diversity matter and how do you see this issue they diaz raises rear its head in their clash and how do you deal with that in your classroom . Well, thank you for the question. Worst of all, i do not have an msa. I was in england and none of the writers i know of my generation generation [inaudible] as we all know, you dont need an mfa to be a writer. Thats a ridiculous idea. It can give you a piece of paper and also give you a table and a few people around the table who are really responding well. The other thing is that hunter, i used to teach in was teaching in the program for some time. But now, i no longer teach and i can tell you the hunter faculty as far as i can tell is the light. There are very few students of color and i dont think it in some ways is like an isolated example. This is a very strange thing because if you look at the arena of american writing, theres extraordinary writers of color in this country that have remade the landscape of american writing. What is it about the program and i think its a good topic to talk about some very interesting things to say. At the Graduate Center, i teach phd students and poetics that we dont actually write poems. A lot of people would come there and then they do phds. I think this is in issue. One of the things that happened happened one of the things that happened is there is some idea as some professionalization and i think we should think about what does this mean. Weve had writing for many centuries in many cultures in many languages. What is this piece of paper do for you . I know people of color have gone to amazing programs. Decisive because it was isolation. These are issues that i think we should try and think about and they are difficult issues. Definitely. I mean, i dont have immediate answers to that, but i think it important to ask the question. Ill open it to any of you that want to ask the question, answer the question. When we look at the writing arena in the Publishing Industry as a whole, very often writers of color are isolated from that arena. And if in fact we look at degrees of your capabilities, if writers of color who are already left out of the mix, kept away from the table, if they are not pursuing these degrees, what are their actions then . Okay, so there is so much here that is that. A few things that you outside permit the idea of professionalizing writing. Im definitely coming. Dig is such an interesting thing because when i professionalize what i think immediately is capitalized. I was thinking about this today. This is another hoop to jump through in a sense. You already had all of these published books. I mean, some of your professors probably arent on the same level as here. It is like what in the world, whether she may die for . Its absolutely outrageous, but i think this is what it comes down to in this country is figuring out how to make money. Or Something Else thats a little scary to me, which is perhaps there is an idea of a particular kind of language in the model of writing which is prescribed in that i find difficult. Thats why i have an msa, but i was thinking nobody goes to college. I got one because i wanted to learn something. But if you dont get an mfa from the right place with the right type of language and that rice faculty, then you are wasting your time. You will not capitalize off of that degree. That is Something Else ive been thinking a lot about like youve got to be with the right people. Youve got to have the right venture. Youve got to go to the right mfa program. If you dont do that come you continue to be marginalized. When you talk about what the alternatives are come with the alternative is always community. We were here talking about john oliver killings the other day. It was amazing to hear he has this workshop every week for years. From 10 00 to 1 00 and it was free. Every Single Person who went through that with ms now i published, respected, loved Community Member who continues to nurture. Community is the real thing. That is what we as writers need is community. Just started speaking to the whole idea of finding the right program, if in fact you decide you want to go after this mfa, me very much like renee, ive been published for like 20 years before i decided that i wanted to get an mfa. I didnt get an msa because i wanted to be validated as a writer. I knew that i wanted to teach in in order to teach i wanted a masters degree. I always thought fine art sounded really nice. Thats what i decided to do. I was lucky enough to be able to go to a program. I am not the opposite end of the spectrum in terms that diaz experience. I had an incredible it here and. I missed my classmates. I missed the experience of being there. It goes back to doing your research. Who went there . Who are the professors . You know, like what is the pedagogy . Same thing if you are applying for a job, you have to figure out if your right fit for this and what is it that is going to come out of it . In an interview for the paris review, Toni Morrison said i would like to write novels that are unmistakably mine. But nevertheless, first into africanamerican tradition is very important to me that my work be africanamerican. I shouldnt have to be asked to do that. Joyce is a master did not. They can be russian, french, irish, catholic. They write from where they, and i do too. She made that statement in response to a question about race. So many of our students here and at other colleges that are predominately students of color are already in that space base. They are nurtured and encouraged you have their authentic voice. They celebrate their otherness in the same spaces. For those users who intend to pursue a career in writing, a field that is inherently white, how can they maintain their voice and navigate through, not around, but through as tony morris has often that. You know, i was thinking if we think back a little bit, how did writers teach themselves to write . Think of James Baldwin. Its not oddly lured, my next her neighbor hunter and was a friend and mentor to me. These are people who read what they loved and learned from it and was a response to things that pushed against them. I mean, when he think of the individual voice, the system being so deep that you have to find the material they give your genealogy as a writer. Just because im indian doesnt mean i cant learn from a nigerian writer for a writer from italy. The great thing about writing is that we learn from our different ways which is also one of the things that the conference as a whole. Raised in the United States is a question. When i think back to india, there was a whole. For the british used to say that indians could not write. So the multiple forms and how that affects the individual writer, this is something that is not gone away for months. I think those conduct a kind of quarrel with us and come out of it. William buckley eight, when he says i have a quarrel with others, we right rhetoric, but out of the quarrel with ourselves we write poetry. When you internalize some pain, you can actually construct an extraordinary work of art if you have the good fortune to do so. So i mean, i think that these are difficulties that they have to be voice, they have to be shared. But that doesnt mean that one cant write and write very well. I know this doesnt directly address the issue of mfa programs, which is our topic, but i think it is not a relevant. Just as donna said, you can go to the program which may be largely white, but you may actually find people whom you retrieve. I think the democratic spin this country, in the United States to face her year or maybe irony there was a socalled minorities are actually the majority. This is an amazing misnomer if you think about what the population as and i think these wonderful connections we can make a train multiple ethnic cities and languages and history are all very, area important. Did you want to add anything to that . About maintaining voice. Again, in i love the way you put that about the genealogy. I really like the way creating your own genealogy as a writer. If you stay in touch with whatever the incidences that move you in the first place, it will be difficult for you to lose your place. Thats what i found if i keep in touch with the balkans and saki sanchez then all of those people, all of those choices that i think has influenced my wok in my path. I surround myself with amaz