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Up to eight fellows, chosen competitively, will participate in a nine-month online inter-generational facilitator training institute, to enable them to incorporate innovative, empathy- and action-based practices into their current academic work, activist endeavors, and research projects, with the overarching goal of using memoir to change hearts, minds, and policy, one story at a time. We are seeking fellows who already have projects in carceral and carceral-adjacent settings underway, who are looking for new avenues to explore in using writing as a tool to change hearts, minds, policy, and/or systems, along with people who are still finding their way into the field.
This year’s fellowship program will focus on developing workshops in partnership with existing human rights and human service organizations, academic institutes participating in prison reform, networks of prison families, healthcare organizations looking for new ways. We will are particularly interested in establishing new branches
of our project:
Each fellow will initiate an ongoing writing project using the Herstory method during the course of the nine months. Following a 13-week hands-on training practicum, the fellows will take on field placements in which they will use Herstory’s online curriculum, incorporating their discoveries into the curriculum website and exploring opportunities for its asynchronous use on a larger scale. They will participate in outreach and impact research as the project expands.
Throughout the training period, fellows will receive intensive mentoring from Herstory to enhance their pedagogical skills, literary practice, and professional development. Herstory will offer ongoing opportunities for publication, editing, transcription and translation, and archiving. The overarching goal is to provide each fellow with tools to lead their own community-based memoir writing groups and gain a deeper understanding of community-engaged pedagogies. Fellows will have an opportunity to participate in the development of online webinar and process materials for national and international dissemination.
Special consideration will be given to candidates working with projects that advance the theory and practice of community writing, advocacy and the healing arts in carceral justice contexts. Fellows must have the flexibility in their current projects to incorporate Herstory’s method into their current work, activists endeavors, and research projects.
Fall 2023: Fellows will attend 13 weekly online training sessions (Thursdays 10:30-1:30 ET, beginning Sept. 7) to learn Herstory’s method and begin their own memoir projects. They will meet regularly with the Herstory Writers Workshop’s director and senior facilitators to develop their workshop facilitating skills and engagement in Herstory’s ongoing projects. Each fellow will be helped to develop a personalized set of goals that align the opportunities of the training Institute with each individual’s interests, strengths, and career plans, and create a specific plan to achieve these goals.
Winter 2023-2024: Fellows will work with Herstory mentors to develop and integrate Herstory-style writing workshops into their existing carceral justice projects and practices.
Spring 2024: Fellows will facilitate their own memoir writing workshops while receiving practicum support, completing their own memoir projects, and engaging in larger scholarly conversations on carceral justice through presentations or publication. Throughout the project period, fellows will work closely with mentors from across Herstory’s network to strategize how the stories generated by this project will be disseminated through online and print publication and public readings in order to make the pedagogy and its practice available to an ever-widening audience. They will play an active role in designing new ways to use story-based strategies for change.
Mentors will also help connect fellows to various publication opportunities, including the possibility for future work with the Herstory project as it continues to evolve and expand. They will be able to use the experience, knowledge, and skills they have gained through the training institute to pursue research and produce scholarly articles in the fields of public humanities and community-engaged writing.
