LYZETTE WANZER

An African American woman wearing shoulder-length dreadlocks, attired in a black top with a disc-shaped pendant necklace.

 

 

 

Lyzette Wanzer is a New York City native now living in San Francisco. Her work appears in over twenty-five literary journals, books, and magazines, and she is a contributor to The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie), The Naked Truth, Essay Daily, and the San Francisco University High School Journal. A four-time San Francisco Arts Commission, three-time Center for Cultural Innovation, and first-time California Humanities grant recipient, Lyzette serves as Judge for the Soul-making Keats Literary Competition’s Intercultural Essay category and the Women’s National Book Association’s Effie Lee Morris Fiction category. She has been accepted to writing residencies across the country and in Canada. Lyzette enjoys reading and presenting her work at conferences such as AWP, the College English Association, American & Popular Culture Association, the San Francisco Writers Conference, and others. She teaches creative writing, with a specialty in professional development, at several Bay Area cultural and educational institutions. During the pandemic year she also began teaching nationwide via the ubiquitous Zoom platform. Her book, Trauma, Tresses, and Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narrative, is due out from Chicago Review Press in 2022.

Learn more on Lyzette's website.

SESSION: For BIPOC Writers: Get Invited to Read at Literary Conferences

This workshop offers information, guidance, and support to underserved Indigenous writers and writers of color who are applying to have their work—poetry, fiction, essays, and creative nonfiction—accepted at a writers' conference or convention, whether virtual or in-person. You've heard the alphabet soup of these events: ACA, AWP, CEA, MLA, PCA, and so many others. In a safe and supportive environment, we will explore how to choose the right writers' conference for you, prepare a polished submission, make a professional impression, create a conference plan, get financial support to attend, approach concerns that arise for us as attendees of color, and avoid common and costly mistakes in your CV and bio that mark you as an amateur. This workshop is intended for writers of color of all levels who feel prepared to present their work at a professional writers' conference.