2025 KWELI INTERNATIONAL LITERARY FESTIVAL
PROGRAM SCHEDULE

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Saturday, October 18, 2025

10:00am - 10:05am

WELCOME by Laura Pegram

10:05am - 11:05am

The Foreigner’s Home Film Clip | Toni Morrison
FIRESIDE CHAT | Edwidge Danticat and Marie Bernard Pennington

11:15am - 12:45pm

A. The Art of the Short Story
“Without Inspection” by Edwidge Danticat (MacArthur Fellow)
In “Without Inspection,” Danticat’s short story opens with the sentence: “It took Arnold six and a half seconds to fall five hundred feet.” The whole story had to happen in six and a half seconds as the main character is falling from a skyscraper. “I had to keep circling back to the moment [of the fall] mimicking someone whose life was flashing before their eyes,” Danticat said. In this workshop, we will look at the technical challenges of this story. Time will be set aside for writing during this session.
Featuring: Edwidge Danticat

B. The Art of the Essay
”To Save the World, My Mother Abandoned Me” by Xochitl Gonzalez (Pulitzer Prize finalist in Commentary)
A Conversation on Craft led by Stephanie Madrid
”To Save the World, My Mother Abandoned Me” is an Atlantic Magazine essay that Xochitl Gonzalez researched for six months. “It is a very personal story,” Xochitl said, “but like many personal stories, it is about a lot of other things, much bigger than my family.” Find out how Xochitl made “heads and tails of hundreds of pages of interview transcripts and research notes and took [her] first stab at turning facts into something [she] hoped readers can also enjoy.” Time will be set aside for writing during this session.
Featuring: Xochitl Gonzalez and Stephanie Madrid

C. The Art of the Novel
The Ethics of Seeing Led by Dinaw Mengestu (MacArthur Fellow)
In this breakout session, we'll dissect and interrogate not only the use, but also the choice and function of detail across a broad range of visual and literary art, from photography, narrative fiction, essay, and journalism. We will examine the particular emphasis certain artists have placed on “seeing” in order to understand both the aesthetic and political consequences of each artists’ argument for how to see or in some cases, how we fail to properly see the world around us.
Featuring: Dinaw Mengestu

1:00pm - 2:00pm
LUNCH

2:15pm - 3:45pm

A. The Art of the Short Story
Writing the Family Led by Yasmin Adele Majeed (Best American Short Stories 2025)
In this craft class, we will discuss family narratives. What are the stories and secrets that get passed down through generations? Who chooses to retell them, and who puts forth their own narrative? Every member has their own understanding of their family’s history, and those conflicting accounts are a rich seam for us to write deeply into. Looking closely at the work of select writers, we’ll explore how to depict intergenerational stories and begin writing our own. Time will be set aside for writing during this session.
Featuring: Yasmin Adele Majeed

B. The Art of the Essay
”The Sum of the Parts” Led by Martha S. Jones (2025 Guggenheim Fellow)
In this workshop, "The Sum of the Parts," we will explore how one essay can bring together divergent and even competing trains of thought. We will look together at the essay "Finding Traces of Harriet Tubman on Maryland’s Eastern Shore" to ask how it is that perspectives on history, biography, climate change, and slavery became woven together to tell a story about a place and what it means to travel there today.
Featuring: Martha S. Jones

C. The Art of the Novel
Make a Scene Led by Nicole Dennis Benn (Lambda Literary Award Winner)
A Conversation on Craft led by Laura Pegram
In this workshop, “Make a Scene,” we will explore strong scenes in the novel, Patsy.

3:50am - 5:00pm

A. The Art of the Short Story
An Story Opening Creates a Common World Led by Yohanca Delgado
The Little Widow from the Capital by Yohanca Delgado (The Best Short Stories 2022: The O. Henry Prize Winners)
Starting with a live author's annotation, we'll explore the ways in which a short story opening creates a common world.
Featuring: Yohanca Delgado (2022 O. Henry Prize Winner)

B. The Art of the Essay
Revising Hybrid Essays Led by Jenny Xu
In this workshop, we will look at discuss the different ways writers can balance the personal against other narratives, from research, history, to criticism. What does it mean to blur the line between memoir and narrative nonfiction? And what does it look like to receive feedback on hybrid work?
Featuring: Jenny Xu (Senior Editor at Atria Books and Washington Square Press)

C. The Art of the Novel
Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu
A Conversation on Craft led by JP Infante

5:15pm - 6:15pm
KEYNOTE
Aaliyah Bilal

6:15pm - 7:15pm

Author Signing

Sunday, October 18, 2025

10:00 am - 11:30am

A. The Art of the Short Story
”Bagging Weight” by JP Infante | Guernica
Writing Voice that Carries Weight
This workshop shows how “Bagging Weight,” the short story published in Guernica Magazine moves. Guest-edited by Jacqueline Woodson, the story follows Nino and Roman, bagging dope in a Washington Heights apartment while grief for Larry hangs heavy. The sentences stay close, clipped, breathing like the block. Raw lines when they need to be sharp, and tender when you least expect it like a city-wide blackout that forces you to reflect. That’s voice. That’s how you pull readers in and keep them. In this session, we’ll break down how rhythm, syntax, and silence carry weight on the page. Then you’ll try it yourself, writing with the kind of voice that tells the truth even when it hurts.

B. The Art of the Essay
The Hollow Half by Sarah Aziza
This breakout session will begin with a film clip from The Foreigner’s Home. Sarah Aziza will share a brief excerpt from The Hollow Half before discussing memory and ancestry, citizenship and belonging with Haddy Gassama.
Featuring: Sarah Aziza (author of The Hollow Half) and Haddy Gassama

C. The Art of the Novel
Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis
A Conversation on Craft led by Emerson Mahoney

11:45pm - 12:45pm

A. On Writing Fellowships
A practical conversation on navigating writing fellowships (e.g., Baldwin For the Arts) and workshops. We’ll break down the application process, from deadlines to strategy. Learn how to craft compelling writing samples, statements, and artist narratives that stand out. And reflections on being awarded residencies, how the time was spent, and sometimes misspent.
Featuring: JP Infante (author of On the Tip of Your Mother’s Tongue) in conversation with Abhigna Mooraka

B. On the Archive and Contemporary Black Poetry
This breakout session will take a look at the archives and artmaking. Artress Bethany White traveled to Accra to continue the research for a book based on archival plantation records documenting her family’s history of enslavement in the U.S.
Featuring: Artress Bethany White (author of A Black Doe in the Anthropocene: Poems)

C. On the Debut Novel
In this breakout session, two debut authors will discuss the journey from self-publishing to University Press to Big 5, challenges of the revision process, the publishing process, and mentally preparing for the work to be in the world!
Featuring: Lauren Morrow (author of Little Movements) and Nikesha Elise Williams (author of The Seven Daughters of Dupree).

1:00pm - 2:30pm
LUNCH
Video Clip | Megha Majumdar (author of A Guardian and a Thief)
Interview with Editor

2:45pm - 3:45pm

A. Collaboration: Author and Beloved Friend
Hanif Abdurraqib once said that “a book often comes to life because of the close attention and care of many people.” Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma came to life, in part, because of the care and attention of Tebogo Skwambane, her beloved friend from South Africa. In the Acknowledgments section of her novel, Lauren mentioned that Tebogo “shared her love of her country long before my first visit and whose willingness not only to answer all my queries over WhatsApp but also to house me while I conducted research in Johannesburg, feels invaluable.” In this breakout session, Lauren can discuss the questions she reached out to Tebogo about, as well as how their friendship shaped her understanding of South Africa.
Featuring: Lauren Francis Sharma (author of Casualties of Truth) and Tebogo Skwambane

B. Collaboration: Editor and Debut Author
Toni Morrison wrote “Good editors are really the third eye. Cool. Dispassionate. They know what not to touch; and they ask all the questions you probably would have asked yourself had there been the time.” During this breakout session, the audience will review some of the edit letters and feedback they shared, see how Israel and Heredia work collaboratively and listen to a discussion on choosing an editor.
Featuring: Alejandro Heredia (author of Loca) and Yahdon Israel

C. Collaboration: Literary Agent and Debut Authors
In this breakout session, we will look at collaborative process between a literary agent and two of her debut authors.
Featuring: Iwalani Kim (Associate Literary Agent, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates), Ebonya Lia (author of I Can Feel It All Over) + Alice Evelyn Yang (author of A Beast Slinks Toward Beijing); moderated by Naomi Xu Elegant (author of Gingko Season).

4:00pm - 4:50pm
FIRESIDE CHAT
Martha S. Jones in Conversation with Genay Jackson

5:00pm - 6:00pm
KEYNOTE
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (author of the Chain Gang All-Stars)

6:00pm - 7:00pm
Author Signing

Conversations
Akwaaba Mansion
October 2025

Cleyvis Natera (author of The Grand Paloma Resort) and Yari Mercedes
Monday, October 20, 2025
6:30pm - 8:30pm
Akwaaba Mansion (ballroom)

KEYNOTE CONVERSATION
Megha Majumdar (author of The Guardian and the Thief) and Abhigna Mooraka
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
6:30 - 8:30pm
Akwaaba Mansion (ballroom)

This keynote conversation will center writing craft, practice, and process, i.e. topics that would be helpful and energizing for all the writers who will gather.

Virtual Classes
November 2025

Princess Joy L. Perry (author, This Here is Love)
The Art of the Novel
Monday, November 10, 2025
6:30pm - 7:30pm

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (author, Misbehaving at the Crossroads)
The Art of the Essay
Thursday, November 13, 2025
6:30pm - 7:30pm