
Brittany Heckard
Jan 24, 2025
Torch’s 2025 Spring Season is full of community collaborations, readings, writing workshops, and more to empower and encourage Black women to continue telling their stories.
This year, we are doubling down on the need for Black women to feel seen, heard, and supported through their writing journey. 2025 is our year of testament to show that despite changes, restrictions, or setbacks, we continue to thrive when love and support are the foundation of our community.
This season, there is an exciting update to the Torch’s Writing Circle. Instead of meeting solely on Mondays, we will alternate the virtual event between Saturday mornings and Monday evenings, giving writers worldwide various options to meet. Our next Writing Circle will be this Saturday, January 25th at 11 a.m. CST.
Our special events this season include:
Carver Museum Solar Saturday on February 1: Torch Poetry Showcase Featuring Marzetta and Shasparay.
Torch Literary Arts is joining the Carver Museum’s Solar Saturday to kick off Black History Month this year. This free event invites Austin residents and beyond to a free afternoon of programming for all generations. As a full-site activation, we will have fun events in the conference room, the classroom, the dance studio, the theatre, and the drum - not to mention the gallery will be open! Vinyl records on long play will fill the halls, a vendor market will be poppin'! Light snacks and refreshments will be served, along with interactive arts and crafts programming to engage the brain. Torch’s showcase is scheduled for 2:30-3:30 p.m. You can RSVP here.
World Read Aloud Day with Torch and Kendra Scott on February 5: A Virtual Fundraising Event
For 48 hours, Feb. 5th to 6th, our friends at Kendra Scott Jewelry will donate 20% of purchases when you use the Torch code to help us celebrate and amplify Black women's voices. Visit Kendra Scott at the Domain or shop online. Enter the Torch Code: GIVEBACK-IMGQX to support Torch Literary Arts! Follow @TorchLiteraryArts on IG for readings by our beloved Torch community members.
Wildfire Reading Series on February 26: Renée Watson
Torch Literary Arts with Black Pearl Books presents the Wildfire Reading Series featuring #1 New York Times bestselling and Newbery Honor Renée Watson, author of All the Blues in the Sky. Join us for a free reading, conversation, Q&A, and book signing as Watson explores friendship, loss, and life with grief in this poignant new novel in verse and vignettes. Donations are appreciated, and you can find out more here.
Inaugural Welcome Table Talk Series on March 11: Building Black Feminist Institutions in Uncertain Times
Join us for a historical virtual event presented by the Wintergreen Women Writers Collective and Torch Literary Arts. Kicking off the first of many, the inaugural Welcome Table Talk will commence with Dr. Joanne Gabbin and Amanda Johnston. More details coming soon!
Playwriting Workshop on March 13: Who all over there? Learning the Character of Your Characters with Florinda Bryant
Compelling storytelling in playwriting is rooted in character development. In this virtual generative character development workshop, participants will dig deep into the characters in the worlds of their work using theatrical jazz performance practices. We will use text from Omi Osun/Dr. Joni L. Jones, Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Àse, and the Power of the Present Moment, as we contemplate the question, what does telling the "truth" have to do with theatre, and how does it inform my character development and archetypes? Participants will leave with prompts and activities designed to find the truth of the characters and figures that drive the plot forward. Find out more here.
Songwriting Workshop on April 19: Megz of Magna Carda
We’ll be hosting our first-ever virtual and free songwriting workshop taught by Megz of Magna Carda. The class will be capped at 10 participants once sign-up opens and a lottery will happen if we exceed 10 RSVPs. More details are coming soon! Stay updated by visiting here for more details.
Wildfire Reading Series on February 26: Kendra Allen
Torch Literary Arts presents the Wildfire Reading Series featuring Kendra Allen, author of the memoir Fruit Punch. Join us at the wonderful BookWoman for a free reading, conversation, Q&A, and book signing. Donations are appreciated, and you can find out more here.
You can RSVP and check back for added Spring 2025 events by visiting torchliteraryarts.org/events. We can’t wait to see you!
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About Torch Literary Arts
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established with love and intention in 2006 to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Torch has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats. For more information about Torch Literary Arts, please visit https://www.torchliteraryarts.org/ or follow @torchliteraryarts on Instagram.
Help Torch continue to publish and promote Black women writers by donating today.
About Kaitlyn “Marzetta” McClung
Kaitlyn “Marzetta” McClung is an independent multidisciplinary artist, musician, and literary scholar based in Austin, Texas. Merging the creative and academic, Marzetta posits the human condition within the scope of queerness and womanhood across the Black African diaspora. With Southern roots informing her research and writing interests, Marzetta earned her M.A. in English from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and B.A. in English and communications media from Alabama A&M University. Marzetta has hosted and performed at the New York City Poetry Festival, Deep Vellum Books in Dallas, and was selected as an emerging literary artist with the Utah Literary Arts Festival. She is a published poet and essayist eager to explore various creative mediums and collaborate with local artists for impact storytelling. Her debut book The Garden: Poems can be found on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.”
About Shasparay
Shasparay (she/they) is a multi-hyphenate performing artist born and raised in Austin, TX. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of the annual Black Arts Matter Festival and is the 2024 Austin Poetry Slam Grandslam Champion. She was also the 2022 4th Ranked Woman Slam Poet in the World (W.OW.P.S). Shasparay completed a Master's in Arts Administration at the Wisconsin School of Business Bolz Center and holds a B.S. in Theatre from UW-Madison. She was a recipient of the First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Full Tuition Scholarship, a speaker at the 2016 TEDxYouth Austin conference, and is a National NAACP ACT-SO Gold Medalist. Shasparay has been a finalist in national and regional slam competitions such as Women of the World Poetry Slam, Stone Wall International Poetry Slam, Southern Fried Poetry Slam, Texas Grand Slam, and is a two-time Lip Stick Wars Poetry Slam Champion. She has been featured on platforms such as the New York Times, Button Poetry, Huffington Post, Youth Speaks, and Buzzfeed. Lastly, she is an AudioVerse award-winning cast member of the highly acclaimed horror anthology podcast Old Gods of Appalachia.
About Renée Watson
Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Her novel, Piecing Me Together, received a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award. Her books include the Ryan Hart series, Some Places More Than Others, This Side of Home, What Momma Left Me, Betty Before X, cowritten with Ilyasah Shabazz, Watch Us Rise, co-written with Ellen Hagan, and Love Is a Revolution, as well as acclaimed picture books: Summer Is Here, Maya's Song, The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, written with Nikole Hannah-Jones, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen, and Harlem's Little Blackbird, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Renée splits her time between Portland, Oregon, and New York City.
About Florinda Bryant
Florinda Bryant is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist, activist, and educator – a Texas gurl who calls Austin home. As a performer and director, she has worked with Salvage Vanguard Theater, the Rude Mechs, the Vortex, Paper Chairs, Theater en Bloc, Teatro Vivo in Austin, TX, and the Ensemble Theater in Houston, Texas. The regional premiere of her one-woman show "Black do Crack" at Ground Floor Theater in Austin, Texas was nominated for five B. Iden Payne Awards including Outstanding Production of a Drama, Original Script, Direction of a Drama, Dramaturgy, and Lead Actress in a Drama, which she won. Florinda has worked with at-risk communities, young men and women, and adults – using performance as a social justice tool for empowerment and change for over 18 years.
About Megan “Megz” Trufant
Megan “Megz” Trufant Tillman is a writer-musician-director multi-hyphenate with Southern roots – hailing from New Orleans, Louisiana. She is co-founder and one-half of Austin-based jazz/neosoul/hip hop outfit Magna Carda, and has played stages at ACL and SXSW, toured nationally, and has played with artists such as Black Pumas, Oddisee, Noname, GZA, Raekwon, Lizzo, BADBADNOTGOOD, and Raphael Saadiq. Her film works include her directorial debut, the award-winning New Orleans-set short film 'little trumpet' and her most recent short film – as co-director and co-writer – NEWBIES. She most recently served as a writer on the music video for the Oscar-winning song “Fight For You” by H.E.R., and Amazon’s H.E.R. Prime Day episode, as well as music supervisor for short films 'Prepared' and 'little trumpet'. She is also the founder and editor of WATER, a boutique bookshop and Black literary and arts magazine. Her creative work centers Black life and culture as well as the Black South. bymegz.com
About Kendra Allen
Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, TX. She's the author of the memoir Fruit Punch, the poetry collection The Collection Plate, and the essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction in 2018. You can find some of her other works on, or in, Oxford American, High Times, Repeller, Southwest Review, The Paris Review, The Rumpus, and more. In her spare time, she loves laughing, leaving, and contemplating what's the greatest rap verse of all time.
Media Contact Information:
Brittany Heckard
Communications Associate
bheckard@torchliteraryarts.org
(512) 641-9251