GrubWrites

GrubStreet's Emerging Writer Fellow Reflects

Bruised from an unsuccessful MFA application, Shawnna Thomas was unsure how to move forward as a writer. Find out how her writing life turned around after being selected as the first recipient of GrubStreet's Emerging Writer Fellowship.

The first few months of the fellowship were a bit of a whirlwind. My first toe-dip into the Grub and Boston literary communities was at the literally jaw-dropping Muse and the Marketplace Conference in early May. I had never been to a writing conference before, and so had never realized how many people—short and tall, children and senior citizens, black, white, orange, and purple—were growing or had already established writing careers and didn’t have to attend an MFA program or be published in The New Yorker to do it. More importantly, it was the first time and place I realized that I was part of a writing community, and that as long as I was writing, wherever I was writing, I was a writer. Read more.