Our History
Our Mission
ROOTS. WOUNDS. WORDS.: A LITERARY ARTS REVOLUTION’S MISSION IS TO BRING THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF LITERARY ARTS TO US who are Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Brown, and of Color, as well as US who identify as LGBTQIA+, formerly-incarcerated, justice-involved, and/or poverty-born. Through visionary educational workshops, performance showcases, publication opportunities, and an annual writers’ retreat, Roots. Wounds. Words. centers and celebrates the storytelling traditions of Us marginalized writers. Roots. Wounds. Words. primary goals are to provide our storytellers with exceptional education, a plethora of opportunity and a robust tribe. Roots. Wounds. Words. seeks to propel our storytellers into the larger literary community, ultimately diversifying canon and what is currently a non-inclusive arts industry.
Our Roots
In July 2018, Nicole Shawan Junior created Roots. Wounds. Words. to eliminate the social, cultural and financial barriers that often prevent BIPOC storytellers from obtaining top-quality literary arts education. At the time, she was a former NYC public school teacher and decade-long prosecutor.
She was also a felon serving out an eighteen-month probation sentence.
Through Roots. Wounds. Words., Nicole sought to make literary arts education accessible for BIPOC, poverty-born, justice-involved, and/or LGBTQIA individuals—people who came from backgrounds and communities similar to her own. What started as a workshop with barely ten participating storytellers seated in a cramped downtown Brooklyn office rental grew into an organization that now supports and amplifies the literary art of over 800 BIPOC storytellers across the country.
Today, Roots. Wounds. Words. is a Literary Arts Revolution that offers visionary literary arts programming including educational workshops, storytellers showcases, publication opportunities, and an annual writers’ retreat for Us. Our participating storytellers have gone on to establish literary art careers, publish their work in various magazines and journals, attend prestigious literary arts programs such as the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and VONA, facilitate literary arts education workshops themselves, publish chapbooks, as well as join the Roots. Wounds. Words. team as Board and Executive Staff Members. Our Board and Staff, like our programs, are comprised of BIPOC individuals who also identify as justice-involved, queer, trans, gender nonconforming, and/or poverty-born—the very intersectional identities that Roots. Wounds. Words. was created to center and celebrate.
Roots. Wounds. Words. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Brooklyn, New York.