The Mesa Refuge is pleased to announce a new fellowship to support practicing teaching artists working with youth in Oakland, California: the Judith Tannenbaum Teaching Artist Fellowship. The fellowship found its inspiration and initial funding from Judith’s family, friends and Chapter 510, Oakland’s only youth writing center. The Mesa Refuge is partnering with Chapter 510 to select residents for sessions coming soon.

From Chapter 510’s founder and executive director, Janet Heller:

Judith Tannenbaum was a Bay Area writer and teacher who was a national leader in the field of community arts. In addition to publishing numerous books of poetry, memoir, and creative writing curriculum, Judith worked passionately to train over one hundred teaching artists to work in community settings (prisons, libraries, schools) to encourage a writing practice for all. She was a proud supporter of Chapter 510. In honor of Judith, Chapter 510 and the Tannenbaum family have created a three-year invitational fellowship to support practicing teaching artists working with Oakland youth.

Teaching artists in our program are making change. Their workshops form communities of belonging and inspire emerging writers to confidently tell their own stories. In the foreword of Chapter 510’s 2019 anthology Black Joy: Black Boy Poems published by Nomadic Press, award-winning poet Tongo Eisen-Martin  wrote: “It is our mandate as writers to synthesize craft from both the beauty and joy of investigation of the music or emotive math of language, synthesize the billion refracted patterns of logic and insight; with the objective of transforming mass culture into a revolutionary culture from which a resistance of global character can set things right. This is where the young Black writers of this book enter. A love and solidarity.”

Thank you for offering your beautiful space and time to write to for our dedicated teaching artists. We are delighted to be in collaboration with you and your community. West Marin has always been a place for rest and renewal for our staff.