A Year of Writing and Dreaming
How do I begin to summarize a year-long, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in one essay? I do not think it is possible, but alas, I will attempt to do so.
I grew up going to my local public library back home in Orlando, Florida. My mom would take my brother and me there almost every weekend to check out books and DVDs. Buying books was a luxury in a low-income, single parent household, so off to the library we went. At the library, the first section I always gravitated toward was the young adult section.
So, it felt natural to me when I moved to Boston in the summer of 2023 to immediately sign up for a library card. I started going to the Boston Public Library’s central location almost every weekend to work on a novel I first conceptualized as a freshman in undergrad.
I did not expect much when I applied to the Associates for the Boston Public Library’s Alan Andres Writer-in-Residence fellowship in the summer of 2024. I certainly did not expect to win. I was 23 years old, barely a year out of undergrad, with no formal creative writing background. I had nothing but years of scribblings, half-baked stories, and a dream.
Photos from the GBH and WCVB Studios where I participated in interviews about winning the fellowship.
The day I moved into the office, I decorated it in cow-print (I love cows) and with my favorite memes (I love memes). In the little bookshelf space, I placed my reference texts: Jennifer De Leon’s Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From (who happens to be the Associates' 2015-16 Writer-in-Residence), Laekan Zea Kemp’s Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet, Anna-Marie McLemore’s The Mirror Season, and more. Not to mention, what would become one of my best friends: my copy of The Emotion Thesaurus.
I settled into a new routine: taking the train to Copley station, perhaps getting a latte from the Newsfeed Café, queuing up my Reggaeton or 90s grunge playlist on Spotify, sitting down to write, getting lunch at CAVA or Chipotle, and then back to work. The office became my sanctuary, somewhere I could retreat from the real world and immerse myself in the world of my characters.
During my residency, I also sought out and learned from mentors and editors in the literary community through my mentorship with Las Musas Books and becoming a finalist for the mentorship program through We Need Diverse Books. I also had the opportunity to attend the Associates' Literary Lights Gala and to hear from the keynote speaker, Elizabeth Strout, whose background in law and transition into becoming a full-time author felt like a window into what my own future might look like.
There wasn’t a moment that went by where I didn’t reflect on how blessed I was to be in this position. It was as if the moment I received that phone call back in the summer of 2024, I started living a dream. The dream that every aspiring author hopes will come true: to be recognized, honored, and paid for their art.
But just as quickly as my life had changed, a year had gone by, and I had a finished manuscript.
If you asked me about my experience now, I still wouldn’t be sure it wasn’t all a dream. I am eternally grateful to the Associates for this experience, for their faith in me and my work, and I am excited to see what the future holds for my writing career.
Applications are currently open for the Alan Andres Writer-in-Residence program until June 5, 2026. Find out more and apply at www.Writer-in-Residence.org