Trillium Arts is delighted to announce Tyrese L. Coleman of Silver Springs, Maryland and Ida Harris of Atlanta, Georgia as the inaugural awardees for the “Miss Sarah” Fellowship for Black Women Writers. The Fellowship, named in honor of Sarah M. Johnson of Hickory, NC, aims to provide Black women writers a restful environment conducive to reflection and writing. It also offers uninterrupted time to plant the seed of an idea for a new writing project or to develop or complete a project underway.
A panel of esteemed black women writers reviewed 79 competitive applications received from around the country, and ultimately awarded two Fellowships to Ms. Coleman and Ms. Harris for the program’s premiere cycle, which will take place in July 2021. The “Miss Sarah” Fellows will receive a variety of benefits including free transportation, a $700 honorarium, and free accommodations for a week in the Blue Ridge mountains either at the Trillium Arts artist residency location in rural Mars Hill, NC or at “Montford Manor” in downtown Asheville, NC.
About the Awardees
Tyrese L. Coleman, “Miss Sarah” Fellow, 2021
Tyrese L. Coleman is the author of How to Sit, a 2019 Pen Open Book Award finalist published with Mason Jar Press in 2018. She is also the writer of the forthcoming book, Spectacle, with One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Writer, wife, mother, attorney, and writing instructor, she is a contributing editor at Split Lip Magazine and occasionally teaches at American University. Her essays and stories have appeared in several publications and noted in Best American Essays and the Pushcart Anthology. She is an alumni of the Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University. Find her at tyresecoleman.com or on twitter @tylachelleco.
Tyrese will be working on her book Spectacle, a literary examination of the Black woman's patient experience.
Ida Harris, “Miss Sarah” Fellow, 2021
Ida Harris is a journalist and essayist, covering a range of topics that intersect with Blackness, including art, activism, cultural criticism, race, social justice and womanhood. Her work has appeared in ESSENCE, Elle, Teen Vogue, USA Today, Yes! Magazine, Crisis Magazine, Rewire News, BLACK ENTERPRISE, Dame, and a bevy of national publications. She is currently working on a novel and collection of short stories.
The Miss Sarah Fellowship for Black Women Writers will afford Ida with the opportunity to center her work and write without distraction. While in residence, she hopes to complete her novel Remnants, and place the final sentence on the page.
About the Review Panelists
Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Ph.D, is Founding Director of the Women's Research & Resource Center at Spelman College and Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies. She is past president of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also edited Words Of Fire: An Anthology of African American Feminist Thought and co-authored with Johnnetta B. Cole Gender Talk: The Struggle For Women's Equality In African American Communities.
Omi Osun Joni L. Jones is an artist/scholar/facilitator who employs Black Feminist aesthetics and theatrical jazz principles in her performance work, her pedagogy, and her facilitation. She has performed at The New Black Fest (NYC), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), and Links Hall (Chicago), and has served as a workplace facilitator with Thousand Currents (Oakland), NoVo Foundation (NYC), and Soladaire (Bay Area). Her dramaturgical work includes August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean and Shay Youngblood’s Shakin’ the Mess Outta Misery—both under the direction of Daniel Alexander Jones, as well as Sharon Bridgforth’s con flama under the direction of Laurie Carlos. Her most recent book is Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àṣẹ, and the Power for the Present Moment (Ohio State University Press). She is Professor Emerita from the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin.
Trudier Harris is University Distinguished Research Professor of English at the University of Alabama. She has authored and edited twenty-five volumes, among which are Fiction and Folklore: The Novels of Toni Morrison, Saints, Sinners Saviors: Strong Black Women in African American Literature, and her award-winning memoir, Summer Snow: Reflections from a Black Daughter of the South.