Help Kweli Support Emerging Artists of Color
Launched in December 2009, Kweli is the first online journal of its kind to nurture writers from various diasporas. Our Kweli Scholars program provides emerging writers of color with tuition-free writing classes and mentorship. In addition, our online literary journal and free Reading and Conversation series, presented in partnership with the New York Times African Heritage Network, have allowed new voices to share both page and stage with Hodder Fellow Cristina Garcia, MacArthur Fellow Edward P. Jones, and other notables.
"Five years ago, I answered an extended call for short stories from a journal whose name I could not correctly pronounce. Since then, I have learned to speak and love the nam
e Kweli. In its 2009 inaugural issue, Kweli published my short story, "A Hard Bed," which the editors of the journal also nominated for a Pushcart Prize.This fall, my story "A Penny, A Pound" was published in the anthology All About Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color. None of this would have happened without the constant encouragement and support of Kweli. My forthcoming and recently published words were rejected by numerous mainstream journals before finding a home with Kweli and All About Skin. Even when my stories gained some notice from mainstream journals by garnering finalist and honorable mention status, they were still passed over for stories with subject matter far afield from the exploration of what it has meant to be black, a woman, a mulatto, an artist and a farmer in Virginia and North Carolina.
Kweli provides a platform for the voices of writers of color, like me, who, despite our unceasing efforts to be heard, do not easily find a willing and welcoming place for our work in the wider publishing world. With your help, Kweli will continue to do this extraordinary work."
-Princess Perry
Give to Kweli and allow us to keep supporting emerging artists of color.
