The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers is proud to announce its 2021 Alumni Micrograntees! Currently in its sixth year, the Alumni Microgrant Program supports creative projects by alumni of the Scholastic Awards. Thanks to the support of The Maurice R. Robinson Fund and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this year the Alliance was able to expand the Program from six to sixteen grants, including six to the alumni of the National Student Poets Program (NSPP). Read more about our inaugural class of 2021 National Student Poet Program Alumni Micrograntees.
Judge Lex Brown selected Catherine Andre, Sasha Baskin, Lena Crown, Stas Ginzburg, Abraham Johnson, Jasper Kerbs, Twi McCallum, Paolo Morales, Madeline Weiner, and Faye Zhang to be grant recipients.
Congratulations to all of our grantees! Read more about their inspiring projects below.
Catherine Andre
Two Gold Keys, Persuasive Writing (2013); Honorable Mention Writing, Short Story Portfolio (2013); Silver Key, Dramatic Writing (2012); Silver Key, Memoir (2012); Silver Key, Persuasive Writing (2012)
Untitled Digital Collaboration | Falls Church, VA
Catherine Andre is a multiracial theater, film, and new media director. Her work aims to use the specific vocabularies of cinema and stage to make audiences empathize with nontraditional womxn scorned, rejected, and otherwise marginalized in patriarchal societies. Pre-Covid-19, Catherine was living in Europe and working with auteur directors to learn how to craft poetry in live performance, in turn applying these methodologies to radical feminist adaptations of classical plays and humanizing, femme-driven performances. She’s an alumna of the Fulbright Scholar Program, Princeton University, and Interlochen Arts Academy, and a recipient of grants from the Drama League, and the Puffin Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, Lewis Center for the Arts, and the Humanities Council.
With her microgrant, Catherine will develop an untitled collaboration with Indian actress Anula Navlekar, to be presented publicly via Zoom this June. Exploring themes of love, loneliness, and broken connections, the piece centers around an Indian immigrant living in America. When her lover of the past five years leaves her for someone else, she takes her American dream with him. This live-streamed performance will break stereotypes and capture the private experiences of an immigrant community rarely put on the American stage or screen, while also visually pushing the boundaries of what “Zoom theater” can be.
Sasha Baskin
Gold Key, Portfolio (2010)
Bobbin Lace Digital Workshop and Creative Practice | Baltimore, MD
Sasha Baskin uses traditional weaving and lacemaking processes in combination with source imagery from reality television to address the intersections between analog and digital technologies. Baskin received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014. Transitioning to craft to study weaving and lace as a drawing medium, she received her MFA in Craft and Material Studies in 2018. She was a 2018–2019 Artist-in-Residence at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and a 2020 Winter Resident at Penland School of Craft. Baskin currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University and Maryland Institute College of Art.
With her microgrant, Sasha will teach a series of workshops on working with bobbin lace, making the labor- and resource-intensive craft accessible to Baltimore residents and students at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Writes Baskin: “In my creative practice, I use lace as a drawing medium to render portraits and explore the relationship of a lace portrait to the veiled goddess. So far, my research has led me to filet lace, a process where I can pixelate a lace image by hand on an existing fishing net grid. Further exploration into bobbin lace allows me to explore the image-making capabilities away from the grid and design more complex, freeform images. Bobbin lace is a unique and complex art form that has been inaccessible to many interested students due to cost, availability of material, and access to instruction. I seek to eliminate those barriers through the development of an engaging and enriching bobbin-lace practice. With the support of this grant, I will develop accessible lesson plans to bring creative, modern applications of bobbin lace to the Baltimore creative community as a whole.”
Lena Crown
Two Silver Keys, Drawing (2014); Silver Medal, Painting (2013); Gold Key, Art Portfolio (2013); Silver Key, Painting (2013); Silver Key, Drawing (2013); Silver Key, Poetry (2009)
A Body Broken | Fairfax, VA
Lena is a writer from Oakland, CA, who spent six years in St. Louis, MO, and still thinks of it as home. Lena’s work is published in The Millions, JMWW, The Offing, Entropy, and Hobart, among others, and she was recently a finalist in the 2020 Ploughshares Emerging Writers Contest. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at George Mason University.
With her microgrant, Lena will travel to St. Louis to conduct observational and archival research to complete her Master’s thesis, a work of literary nonfiction fusing history, reportage, and personal narrative. The fragmentary essay collection aims to investigate the claim made by Natalie Scenters-Zapico’s poem—“the city is a body broken”—by honing in on the city’s visible seams. Lena will examine the effects of the construction of the city’s interstate highways and several local landmarks, and she hopes to interview local artists who create installation work on the relationship between the city’s landscape and the body.
Stas Ginzburg
Silver Medal, Photography Portfolio (2002); Silver Key, Photography (2001)
FLOWERS | Brooklyn, NY
Stas Ginzburg is a Russian-born artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Ginzburg graduated from Parsons School of Design, New York City, where he studied photography. Since then, he expanded his practice to sculpture, installation, and performance to explore his interfaith background, memories of growing up in post-Soviet Russia, and his life as a Jewish émigré in America.
Ginzburg’s work has been shown in venues across the United States including Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Honolulu Museum of Art, and National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, among others. He has shown his performances at Humboldt University in Berlin and Weltkunstzimmer in Düsseldorf, Germany.
With his microgrant, Stas will work to produce an artist’s book of a series of photographic portraits, titled FLOWERS, taken since the summer of 2020 surrounding the protests for racial justice and equality. Regarding FLOWERS, Ginzburg writes: “After the killing of George Floyd, I started taking portraits of organizers and activists I met at marches and rallies for the Black Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives Matter movements. I was captivated by the many beautiful faces of young people from all walks of life who came out into the streets in the middle of the pandemic and summer heatwave. The city streets will forever echo with their chants demanding justice for lives lost and calling for a world filled with equality and love for every human being. In the early weeks of the summer, the sidewalks and buildings adjacent to City Hall (an area that became known as Abolition Park) were covered with graffiti and artwork that captured the energy of the time. Among these were drawings of flowers and plants juxtaposed with writing They didn’t know we were seeds and Black Is Beauty, among others. I began thinking of the young people I was photographing as flowers—full of color and life at the dawn of a new day.”
Abraham Johnson
American Voices Award, Humor, (2015); Silver Medal, Humor, (2015); Silver Key, Flash Fiction (2015); Gold Key, Memoir (2014)
Trip the Light Fantastic | Atlanta, GA
Abraham Johnson (all pronouns) writes plays, prose, and love letters that center unabashed queer lives and strange transformations. As a playwright, their favorite credits include being named a two-time Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow and serving as the inaugural Frontera Playwright with El Centro Productions in Syracuse, NY. In prose, their favorite credits include “Trip the Light Fantastic” winning first place in the Voyage YA First Chapters Contest (selected by Dhonielle Clayton) and publishing their personal essay “Other Boys” with Hello Mr. Magazine. This essay was featured in the magazine’s Naughton Gallery Exhibit in Belfast, Ireland.
With their microgrant, Abraham plans to spend ten days at a writers’ retreat in the coastal town that acts as the setting of their young adult novel, Trip the Light Fantastic. Trip the Light Fantastic follows Aubrey Davis, a genderqueer teen attending an elite summer research fellowship along the Long Island Sound. Two days before leaving for the summer experience of their dreams, a cancer diagnosis in Aubrey’s family shakes them to their core. But when your whole life waits in the driveway and you have your family’s blessing, how do you turn down destiny?
Jasper Kerbs
Gold Key, Art Porfolio (2014)
Public Assistants Hybrid Passive Hot Water System | Brooklyn, NY
From working in fine art to community-based projects, Jasper has shifted gears in his efforts to create and organize urban farms and gardens, and engage food sovereignty projects and energy-sovereignty initiatives. He gained his building skills through a multidisciplinary fine-art background. Jasper’s main focus for the past five years has been undertaking and advocating for ways of creating and living that expand his community’s threshold for radical care of each other and the land.
With his microgrant, Jasper will assemble a hybrid off-grid hot water system combining solar, thermal, and wood stove heat exchangers with hyper-local youth and members of Public Assistants, a QTBIPOC lead mutual aid resistance hub in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Twi McCallum
Gold Key, Writing (2014)
Thank You, Dark | Brooklyn, NY
Twi McCallum is a sound designer living in New York, originally from Baltimore, MD. Her favorite theatrical credits include Kansas City Rep, The Kennedy Center, and Baltimore Center Stage. She is currently an apprentice sound editor on a television show for STARZ and limited series for NBCUniversal. Most importantly, she credits her artistry to being a former student of Howard University’s theatre department and being a certificate student in Yale School of Drama’s one-year sound program class of 2021. Twi’s favorite hobby is her five pet snails named Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Rihanna.
Twi will use her microgrant to fund the production of an educational webseries titled Thank You, Dark. “Thank You, Dark” is a phrase used in theater to mean the lights are going out. Typically the lighting designer or stage manager will say, “Going dark!” and everyone in the room responds, “Thank you, dark.” So, the name of the webseries is a loving play on words to show appreciation for BIPOC artists. Thank You, Dark will highlight Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latinx theater designers and cinematic production and post-production artists. The webseries will expose middle school, high school, and undergraduate students to non-white artists in the industry, as a supplement to their in-classroom learning environment. The mission is to illustrate the background, work process, and production examples of experienced BIPOC artists who are often not given a platform to discuss their careers.
Paolo Morales
Gold Key, (2007)
Memphis Tulips | Philadelphia, PA
Paolo Morales is a photographer. He grew up in New York City and lives in Philadelphia. His works have been exhibited at the Hamiltonian Gallery, The George Washington University, XYZ Art Gallery at VirginiaTech, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the New York Asian Film Festival. Publications include VICE Magazine, Papersafe Magazine, The Washington Post, Dazed, and The New Yorker. Artist residencies include Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture and Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. He received an MFA in photography from Rhode Island School of Design and teaches at The Agnes Irwin School.
Paolo will use his microgrant to fund the continued production of his experimental documentary project Memphis Tulips, which documents his relationships with his adopted family in the Kensington area of Philadelphia. Memphis Tulips is a fictional, photographic account of a Philadelphia community filled with hope despite adverse conditions. Regarding his work, Morales writes, “My pictures describe racially diverse people who tenderly hold onto each other or stare back at the world with skepticism.”
Madeline Weiner
Silver Key, Poetry (2012); Silver Key, Mixed Media (2012); Gold Key, Poetry (2008); Silver Key, Poetry (2008); Silver Key, Short Story (2007)
Underexposed: Innovators of Cinema | Louisville, KY
Madeline Weiner is a cartoonist, illustrator, and bookmaker. She grew up across the river from Cincinnati and lives in an old nunnery in Louisville, KY. She attended the University of Louisville and graduated in May 2016 with a BA in Fine Arts. She is currently working on her first graphic novel and on Underexposed, a series of short comics about women and LGBTQ+ film directors.
Madeline will use her microgrant to continue work on her short-comic series, Underexposed: Innovators of Cinema. Underexposed recognizes the creative legacies of women and LGBTQ filmmakers throughout film history. Each short comic focuses on one director and illustrates their life, work, and legacy through thorough research, engaging commentary, and exciting illustrations.
Faye Zhang
Gold Medal, Writing Portfolio (2012)
Memoirs of a Barefoot Doctor | Amherst, MA
Faye Zhang is an artist and writer born in Maanshan, China, and raised in Omaha, NE. In 2012, Faye won a Gold Medal Portfolio Award in Writing from the Scholastic Awards. Since that time, she has explored film, design, and art. With interdisciplinary training in English, visual arts, and anthropology, Faye communicates stories with a basis in research and fact. Currently based in Amherst, MA, she is working on a graphic novel titled Memoirs of a Barefoot Doctor. As humanity’s ecological footprint grows, she is interested in using storytelling to spur action on solving climate and environmental problems.
Faye will use her microgrant to continue work on her graphic novel, Memoirs of a Barefoot Doctor, which tells the stories of her grandmother and great-aunt. Memoirs is about Wang Xilan and Wang Hong, sisters born in 1940s China to a rural peasant family. After China’s tumultuous decade of war and revolution, the younger sister, Wang Xilan, became the first person in her family to pursue a medical career. However, the older sister, Wang Hong, was swept up by lingering patriarchal traditions and then the hysteria of the Cultural Revolution—first an unhappy bride, then sentenced to hard labor by the Red Guard. By telling the stories of two women side-by-side, this work explores the complicated aftereffects of the Chinese revolution and modernity.
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