A Black trans woman with disabilities, Taiwana Shambley is a full-time writer and award-winning teaching artist from St. Paul’s North End neighborhood. Based in Minneapolis, and guided by political anger and black radical tradition, Taiwana’s mission is to empower queer, trans, and disabled youth voices, through both her writing and by facilitating storytelling skills for others. Taiwana is a 2021 Fulbright Program Alternate, a 2023 Loft/MISA Excellence in Teaching Fellow, a 2023 Minnesota Colleges & Universities Write Like Us Mentor, a 2022 PEN/Faulkner Teaching Fellowship Finalist, and you might’ve seen her face on the cover of Minnesota Women’s Press. Her fiction has been recognized with grants and awards from CURA, the Loft Literary Center, and MRAC. Visit taiwanashambley.com to sign up for her mailing list and receive updates on her first novel.
A statement concerning all of Taiwana Shambley’s classes: She is a Black trans woman with disabilities who has built and studied a small library’s worth of Black radical social movements. So, in the curriculum and pedagogy of all her classes, she tends to center the experiences of Black women, people with disabilities, and queer & trans youth. This often looks like scaffolding, Tier 1 Restorative Justice circles, individualized feedback and evaluation, one-on-one coaching and support, a relational learning environment, and positive reinforcement.
Program Offerings
Residencies and Workshops
All of these programs can be adapted into a single workshop, a series of workshops, or a multi-week class or residency, and additional scaffolding, one-on-one time, and alternative modes of engagement are provided for Early Learners, Early Elementary students and students with learning disabilities.
Fiction for Social Change
In Fiction for Social Change, we tackle the question of how to write explicitly political pieces well. We study and discuss authors who have written exceptional works of political fiction, analyzing their work, extrapolating the techniques they use, and applying them to our own work with original writing prompts facilitated by teaching artist Taiwana Shambley.
Potential texts: Nikki Giovanni; Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
Speculative Fiction: Writing Radically Imaginative Futures
N.K. Jemisin teaches worldbuilding–which is traditionally understood as a genre-specific craft element relating to Science Fiction and Fantasy–as entailing an “element X,” that one fantastical or technological aspect of your story that moves it from the parameters of the primary world, our world, to that of the secondary world, the imagined world of the author’s story. In this Speculative Fiction class, we learn methods for writing worlds with element X’s that are believable to the reader.
Potential texts: Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming; akwaeke emezi, Pet; Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed, Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents
Writing Your Hood
Here, the setting is a focal point of the class. We study and discuss fiction, hip-hop music, and screenwriting that takes place in marginalized neighborhoods, neighborhoods familiar with homelessness, substance abuse, and/or gun, gang, and police violence, places that someone from Martin Luther King Jr.’s day would call urban ghettos. We’ll analyze, collect, and try our hand at the various techniques and approaches authors take to telling the story of their hood.
Potential texts: Hanif Abdurraqib, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much; Vince Staples
Writing Political Anger and Violence
Readers don’t always want to see it, but oftentimes, violence is a common, necessary strategy for liberating oneself. In this class, inspired by philosopher Myisha Cherry’s articulation of political anger, we study, discuss, and analyze fiction stories that portray graphic depictions of violence, especially insofar as the violence comes from a righteous anger. How do you write violence, and write it well?
Potential texts: Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give; Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf, akwaeke emezi, Bitter
Queer and Trans Creative Writers
How does one tell queer and trans stories well? In this class, we’ll take a creative writing and slightly research-based approach to learning the lives and works of contemporary and classic queer and trans creative writers. We’ll analyze common themes and craft choices from these writers, using their work as mentor texts, and trying our hand at their writing techniques with original prompts facilitated by teaching artist Taiwana Shambley.
Potential texts: Carmen Maria Machado; Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky; Jamel Brinkley, A Lucky Man
Performances
Original work written and performed by Taiwana Shambley
Taiwana’s work explores disability justice, Black girls, Black gods, hood youth experiences, city girl experiences, and mother-daughter relationships. She is known for her powerful delivery and using her voice to embody each sentence on the page in heartfelt and deeply enjoyable ways. Performance options: 5, 10 ,15, 20, and 25-minute sets.
“Before I offer specific comments on Taiwana’s skill and experience, I want to share that she is a wonderful person. Taiwana is intelligent, kind, genuine, organized, prepared, diligent, supportive, and easy-going. She is community-oriented and builds community in myriad ways, as a writer, as a colleague, as a teacher, as a person interested in a just world, and as a friend. In terms of skills and experience, Taiwana is an exceptional teacher. She is among the best I’ve seen in creating a classroom space that promotes learning, personal growth, comfort, and safety. Taiwana is exceptional at leading and maintaining community agreements. She does an excellent job motivating students to embrace assignments and to make an effort. Taiwana meets students where they are, and she is great at identifying and encouraging what’s next for each student. She leads in a way that is clear and collaborative. Taiwana is also among the most prepared, organized, and reliable teachers I’ve encountered. After I hired her to work at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists, Taiwana met with me to talk about teaching, curriculum, syllabus preparation, lesson planning, the school, and what makes our students unique. The bulk of our conversation was driven by Taiwana’s questions. She was extremely comfortable communicating her needs and letting me know where she wanted more information or support. That openness and willingness to learn sources her ability to create classroom spaces that are open and conducive to learning. When I think of the kind of educators we need in our modern schools, Taiwana is exactly the person I have in mind. She is, quite simply, a great teacher and an exemplary colleague.”
Michael Kleber-Diggs
“I first met Taiwana when she was a youth poet participating in TruArtSpeaks’ Be Heard MN Youth Poetry Slam series, a program that I helped manage at the time. What first struck me about Taiwana was her undeniable talent as both a writer and performer, but the truth is that we meet lots of talented artists in this community. What makes Taiwana special is her continued commitment to the work beyond writing and performing—to teaching, role-modeling, mentoring, self-improvement, and building community with others. To this day, Taiwana is one of my go-to referrals for gigs that demand something more than simply showing up and being talented; I trust her ability to facilitate learning and community-building through both a rigorous pedagogical practice and a down-to-earth ability to connect with students—especially queer & trans youth, BIPOC youth, and youth with disabilities. As someone who spends a lot of time in different schools, I am confident in saying that Taiwana is precisely the kind of person we need engaged in the work of teaching and youth development.”
Kyle Tran Myhre (aka Guante)
“Taiwana Shambley is a passionate powerhouse of a writer – she pulls from personal experiences to comment on wider societal issues in a way that is truly captivating. I’ll never forget hearing her read a story about a character who was bullied in school and finally fought back against his bully. The way Taiwana framed the expression of violence was absolutely brilliant and unlike anything I’ve read before!”
Sabrina Marie
