The Zora Neale Hurston Writing Fellowship at Bard College Welcomes Four Writers for Its 2025 Summer Residency Program
Clockwise from upper left: Sharon DuPree, Obi Nwizu, Susan Graham, and Christelle Jasmin.
The Zora Neale Hurston Writing Fellowship at Bard College, now in its fourth year, welcomed its cohort of four writers this summer, Sharon DuPree, Susan Graham, Christelle Jasmin and Obi Nwizu.
The Hurston Fellows are in residence for three weeks, concluding on June 21, residing on Bard College at Simon’s Rock campus with housing and meals provided. Each fellow spends their time working, writing, and researching independently on dedicated projects for the duration of the residency. Founded and directed by Visiting Associate Professor of Literature and American Studies Donna Ford Grover, the Hurston Fellowship enables writers from all disciplines who have not had the opportunity to develop their scholarship, and supports writers who are currently employed as adjuncts or visiting professors with terminal degrees.
“The diverse academic backgrounds and voices of the participants of this program merge together into a wonderful writing community,” said Grover. “The peace and beauty of the Berkshires has been a fitting backdrop for the amazing work that happens in these three weeks.”
As a Hurston Fellow, Sharon DuPree has been conducting statistical research and revising her first book-length manuscript, Because of Shebbie, a memoir that explores the challenges of transitioning economic class in America, with a particular emphasis on how black intersectionality impacts upward mobility. As an African American, queer, neurodivergent woman, DuPree is often forced to highlight only one aspect of her identity at a time to be accepted by mainstream society. However, in order for her to transcend deep poverty and achieve success, she had to marshal the power of her full self. Her memoir turns the American perception of inclusion upside down and shows difference as power, identity as fluid, and human connection as heartbreakingly complex.
Susan Graham has been spending her residency editing her novel “Blue Sky Gone,” with the aim of identifying and extracting passages from the novel for inclusion in her visual art as text and video scripts. This involves pulling text during the current developmental edit that can be adapted for her ongoing visual art practice. As Graham’s visual art feeds her writing, her fiction explores ideas and imagery to be incorporated into sculptures, videos, and prints.
While in residence, Christelle Jasmin has been working on a chapter of her dissertation about Haitian Vodou, the Middle Passage, and the ancestral spirits of La Sirene (the mermaid) and La Balenn (the whale). The Hurston residency has been providing Christelle with the time, space, and quiet to listen deeply to Vodou songs and prayers dedicated to these particular spirits, and to reflect on the ways in which ancestral memory of the Middle Passage—the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas—and freedom-making survives in this tradition.
Obi Nwizu has been working on “Rainstorms Bare Down on Me,” a piece of literary fiction that tells the story of a Nigerian woman who obtains a scholarship to study in England, but soon after graduating finds herself married to a British multi-millionaire. Her story takes the protagonists on a journey of self-discovery and grief, showing how countries, families, and sheer circumstance can cripple a woman's sense of self and change the trajectory of her life.
Post Date: 06-18-2025
The Hurston Fellows are in residence for three weeks, concluding on June 21, residing on Bard College at Simon’s Rock campus with housing and meals provided. Each fellow spends their time working, writing, and researching independently on dedicated projects for the duration of the residency. Founded and directed by Visiting Associate Professor of Literature and American Studies Donna Ford Grover, the Hurston Fellowship enables writers from all disciplines who have not had the opportunity to develop their scholarship, and supports writers who are currently employed as adjuncts or visiting professors with terminal degrees.
“The diverse academic backgrounds and voices of the participants of this program merge together into a wonderful writing community,” said Grover. “The peace and beauty of the Berkshires has been a fitting backdrop for the amazing work that happens in these three weeks.”
As a Hurston Fellow, Sharon DuPree has been conducting statistical research and revising her first book-length manuscript, Because of Shebbie, a memoir that explores the challenges of transitioning economic class in America, with a particular emphasis on how black intersectionality impacts upward mobility. As an African American, queer, neurodivergent woman, DuPree is often forced to highlight only one aspect of her identity at a time to be accepted by mainstream society. However, in order for her to transcend deep poverty and achieve success, she had to marshal the power of her full self. Her memoir turns the American perception of inclusion upside down and shows difference as power, identity as fluid, and human connection as heartbreakingly complex.
Susan Graham has been spending her residency editing her novel “Blue Sky Gone,” with the aim of identifying and extracting passages from the novel for inclusion in her visual art as text and video scripts. This involves pulling text during the current developmental edit that can be adapted for her ongoing visual art practice. As Graham’s visual art feeds her writing, her fiction explores ideas and imagery to be incorporated into sculptures, videos, and prints.
While in residence, Christelle Jasmin has been working on a chapter of her dissertation about Haitian Vodou, the Middle Passage, and the ancestral spirits of La Sirene (the mermaid) and La Balenn (the whale). The Hurston residency has been providing Christelle with the time, space, and quiet to listen deeply to Vodou songs and prayers dedicated to these particular spirits, and to reflect on the ways in which ancestral memory of the Middle Passage—the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas—and freedom-making survives in this tradition.
Obi Nwizu has been working on “Rainstorms Bare Down on Me,” a piece of literary fiction that tells the story of a Nigerian woman who obtains a scholarship to study in England, but soon after graduating finds herself married to a British multi-millionaire. Her story takes the protagonists on a journey of self-discovery and grief, showing how countries, families, and sheer circumstance can cripple a woman's sense of self and change the trajectory of her life.
Post Date: 06-18-2025