Heartland Journalism fellows St. Louis writer Marie Wenya Burns (left) and WashU senior Alethea Franklin (Photographs courtesy of Marie Wenya Burns and Alethea Franklin)
Washington University in St. Louis undergraduate student Alethea Franklin and St. Louis writer Marie Wenya Burns are the second annual recipients of the Heartland Journalism Fellowships.
Established by WashU and the River City Journalism Fund, the Heartland Journalism Fellowships support development of aspiring minority and underrepresented writers. During their yearlong residency, which began July 1, Franklin and Burns will work with WashU faculty as well as staff of The Common Reader, a journal based at WashU, to produce long- and short-form journalism dealing with issues of race, ethnicity, and equity.
“The aim is to increase the number of minority investigative and long-form journalists,” said Gerald Early, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in the departments of English and of African and African-American Studies, as well as founding editor of The Common Reader.
“One fellowship is awarded to a local minority writer who is already a journalist or interested in becoming one to work on a local project over the course of a semester or a year,” Early added. “The other is for a WashU student, graduate or undergraduate, with similar ambitions who also is working on something or wants to work on something that is local or regional.”
Franklin is a rising senior majoring in psychology and brain sciences, with a minor in writing, all in Arts & Sciences. She is also an executive board playwright with Black Anthology, a student-run showcase blending Black theater and dance holding annual performances, and a Gephardt Institute Fox-Clark Civic Scholar. She was raised in Tallahassee, Fla. Her writing explores the impacts of urban planning, design, and infrastructure on housing and health outcomes in ethnic communities.
Burns is a resident of Bevo Mill neighborhood in south St. Louis, Mo., who works in the St. Louis County Library, where in addition to administrative duties she designs and hosts themed programs for literacy and community enrichment. She was a Sparks Fellow at Park & Fine Literary Media in New York, monitoring submissions and publishing queries, and worked as a volunteer with OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates in the greater St. Louis area. Burns is an MFA graduate in creative writing from University of Notre Dame, where she was an editorial assistant at Notre Dame Review. Burns’ writing explores the intersections of history and fiction genres in Asian-American communities, forming a novel-in-progress she hopes to complete during her fellowship.
The Common Reader initiated the fellowships in partnership with the River City Journalism Fund, a new nonprofit that seeks to advance local journalism in St. Louis. Additional support and sponsorship are provided by: the Black Heartland Fund; WashU’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Equity; and the departments of African and African-American Studies and of English, the Urban Studies program, and the Center for the Humanities all in Arts & Sciences. The River City Journalism Fund helped collect and evaluate fellowship applications.
“One of the key ways that the River City Journalism Fund seeks to improve the local journalism landscape in St. Louis is to increase the opportunities available to talented writers from underrepresented backgrounds,” said Richard Weiss, chairman of the nonprofit. “It’s hard to dream up a better opportunity than getting to work with Dr. Early and The Common Reader on projects like these. We can’t wait to see what Alethea and Marie are able to accomplish.”
For more information about the fellowships, contact Ben Fulton, managing editor of The Common Reader, at ben.fulton@wustl.edu.
