creating a more equitable creative writing landscape

At Redbud, we are committed to offering classes to a wide variety of Triangle residents from a panoply of different racial and economic backgrounds. We are also committed to offering classes that encourage students to explore literature and write about experiences that we believe should be reflected in the publishing industry: the interiority of women and gender nonconforming people, racial and ethnic identity, queer experience, reproductive justice, and more. Based on surveys of our community and conversations with our students and teachers, as well as the rhetoric in the larger creative writing community, we believe that it is essential to expand the kinds of writers and the kinds of writing that are nurtured and uplifted in the American literary landscape.

Students from all backgrounds deserve to hear that their voices matter and that they have the right to tell their stories and explore their imagination. They also deserve access to the craft-based instruction, care, feedback, and writerly community necessary to tell those stories. And when more different kinds of stories and writers are elevated, we all benefit.

Learn more about our scholarship program here and our community classes here.