Introducing the 2023-2024 Teaching Fellows: Jonathan Todd and Jacquinn Sinclair. The Teaching Fellowship for Black Writers provides financial and professional development support to two self-identified Black writers interested in teaching classes, participating in events, and working with our instructors and staff to deepen our curriculum. The fellowship includes compensation of $25,000, artistic mentorship, and access to the GrubStreet community and the Muse and the Marketplace conference. We could not be more excited to congratulate and welcome Jonathan and Jacquinn!
Jonathan Todd is the author/illustrator of Timid (Scholastic/Graphix), a semi-autobiographical graphic novel about overcoming shyness and recognizing the value of embracing your cultural community. Jonathan is also a cofounder of the Boston Kids Comics Fest: https://bostonkidscomicsfest.org. He was a Jacqueline Woodson Fellow in the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program where he studied writing for children and young adults. A frequent comics teacher in libraries and schools, Jonathan was the 2015 Graphic Novelist-in-Residence at the Morse Institute and Bacon Free libraries in Natick, Massachusetts. Before creating graphic novels for kids, Jonathan studied journalism, illustration, English and history. He has contributed cartoons to dozens of publications, including Post Road, The Boston Globe, and The Tennessean.
Jacquinn Sinclair is a Boston-area-based journalist, author, and poet. Currently, she’s a contributing performing arts writer and theater critic for WBUR The ARTery. Typically, her writing seeks to highlight creatives and organizations whose work is at the intersection of art and activism. Jacquinn’s stories and poems have been anthologized in the International Women’s Writing Guild’s “Heels into the Soil: Stories & Poems Resisting the Silence” and “New Jersey Fan Club: Artists and Writers Celebrate the Garden State.” She is also a recent winner of the Dunamis Boston’s Emerging Artist Fellowship, during which she developed a small collection of poetry centered on nature’s healing powers. An avid traveler and food enthusiast, Jacquinn’s writing has appeared in various publications, including The Boston Globe, Momentum, Lonely Planet, and more.