TDPS MA student Jonelle Walker awarded Day Eight Arts Writing Fellowship

Congratulations to MA student Jonelle Walker on being awarded the Day Eight Arts Writing Fellowship!

Congratulations to MA student Jonelle Walker on being awarded the Day Eight Arts Writing Fellowship!

Initiated by local non-profit organization Day Eight the paid fellowship is funded with support from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Humanities Council of Washington, and partners including Brink Media, DCRE, and The Clarice. The Day Eight mission states, “[We] empower individuals and communities to participate in the arts through the production, publication, and promotion of creative projects.” The fellowship provides paid opportunity to cover the arts and humanities, as well as training and mentorship from established professional journalists.

Jonelle and one other fellow will hold the fellowship for six months, during which time they will write weekly short-form articles and/or reviews of performing arts events in the DC Metro area, and support publication of a forthcoming arts anthology.

Day Eight is especially focused on how arts writing impacts arts engagement and community building, and in addition to her writing tasks, Jonelle will also host pre- and post-performance discussions and host a community conversation about the local DC arts scene.

Jonelle starts in June, and she is looking forward to the opportunity to develop her skills at the intersection of her academic scholarship and writing about arts in the community. For her scholarship, she was also recently awarded Honorable Mention for her essay, “The Patriarchal Universal: Learning from the Failures of Gender Parity within the Open Theatre,” from ATHE’s Theory & Criticism Focus Group’s Graduate Student Essay Contest. Jonelle considers herself a writer first and foremost, and the fellowship will allow her to access a wider readership outside of the academic community, and to promote building, informing, and engaging audiences locally.

Day Eight’s Arts Writing Fellowship is designed to serve early career arts writers, and Jonelle will be mentored by established arts journalists such as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Sarah Kaufman, a UMD graduate and the Dance critic for The Washington Post. The project is supported by a committee of leaders in the arts, arts journalism, and communications/media, including TDPS dance professor Karen Bradley, and The Clarice’s associate executive director Erica Bondarev Rapach.

The Day Eight arts writing fellows will be launching a website soon, so stay tuned for more. Congratulations, Jonelle!

By Kate Spanos