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On April 17th, the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center will continue its centennial celebration of famed novelist, essayist, and orator James Baldwin with The Symposium: Why Baldwin Matters. The day-long event will feature lecture and conversation "Looking for Jimmy" with David Leeming, Baldwin’s official biographer and close friend, and panel discussion "Why Baldwin Matters- Friendship, Scholarship and Imagination" followed by a reception. Prof. Keith Clark, author of Black Manhood in James Baldwin, Ernest J. Gaines and August Wilson and distinguished professor of English and African and African American Studies, will host both events. This symposium will bring together Baldwin scholars, Mason students, and writers who knew Baldwin personally.

I traveled to Madagascar in the Summer of 2023 to meet a small community that converted to Judaism in 2016. Not well known to the broader international Jewish community, I had heard about them through word of mouth and a few videos and articles here and there online. It is possible to access practical information about this group, such as how they learned about Judaism and who converted them, but not much else is available. Converting to Judaism is often a difficult and prolonged process because according to Jewish belief, one does not need to be “part of the tribe” in order to be a good person or achieve salvation, so conversion is generally discouraged unless one feels deeply compelled. As an extrovert, I wanted to meet the individuals who spent years studying as a community to assume this new identity—one that I share with them. I was curious about the possibility of connection in an unlikely place. As a poet, I wanted to visit Madagascar to experience a new world, meet new people, and learn a new terrain. Both of these pieces of myself and this experience were to ultimately contribute to my broader work on identity and its connection to land, to books, and to the stories and histories we tell.

Klara Kalu writes "Navigating through landscapes scarred by strife, I question whether silence can ever truly be an option for those whose words hold the power to illuminate silenced histories. As a Nigerian writer, I think a lot about how to tackle writing about my home, my language and my experiences for a global audience, the line between authorial obligation and creative autonomy, and beckoning readers into a realm where storytelling becomes not only a craft but a conduit for societal reckoning. "

In this conversation between Klara Kalu and Cheuse Fellow, Carol Mitchell, Mitchell talks about her craft, and her debut novel, 'What Start Bad a Mornin'. Mitchell teaches at George Mason University and Klara Kalu is in her first year MFA as a fiction writer.

Priyanka Champaneri (BA '05, MFA '10) was named one of 35 recipients of a 2024 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. Creative Writing Fellowships of $25,000 are awarded in alternating years in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry, giving recipients the time and space to create, revise, conduct research, and connect with readers.

We are thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2024 Cheuse Center Travel Fellowship!

"As I say, it is perhaps easier to love America passionately, when you look at it through the wrong end of the telescope, across all the Atlantic water...than when you are right there. When you are actually in America, America hurts," says Rabih Alameddine, in his fabulous chats with Kat Colvert, 2021 Cheuse Fellow.

Juan Gómez Bárcena says, "But beyond a book tour, a residency gives a writer something very valuable: time. We writers are often consumed by many responsibilities from which we cannot escape –presentations, readings, literary workshops, meetings with readers. Settling in a foreign country, however, confines us to something like a bubble, where time itself seems to stop."

Cheuse Fellow O. Dada says, "or a couple of years now, "The Nigerian Hustle" has been my passion project, taking form (for the time being) as a podcast operating from a distance. I've had the fortune of a steadfast partner on the ground, Adeoye Shobakin, a vital presence without whom the pulse of the project would not beat as strongly. Together, we've stitched a narrative quilt from the stories of countless Nigerians, connecting through the magic of the internet. But last summer, I took a step closer to the heartbeat of my endeavor – I traveled down to Nigeria, not as a visitor or a returning son, but as a seeker of stories, looking to profile the protagonists of my tales in person."