Hand Papermaking, Inc. is delighted to announce Talia Kimberley Wright as the recipient of our 2025 Black Writers Fellowship. Wright was selected following a national call for proposals this past summer. The Black Writers Fellowship program was established by Hand Papermaking in solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives as a tangible step toward addressing social inequities and amplifying diverse voices in the field of hand papermaking. The program reflects our commitment to representing the full breadth of work and perspectives within the craft.
Talia Kimberly Wright is a multidisciplinary artist and writer born and raised on the Southside of Chicago. Utilizing memory, word, and material object, her work aims to bridge the gap between the ancestral, traditional, and regenerated lives of Black people in America, especially those who have been impacted by the Great Migration. She employs different methodologies like book-making, ceramics, collaging, and painting in an effort to investigate the expansiveness of geography inhabited by Black Americans and the relationships built within them, specifically through the lens of Afro-surrealism. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been published in These Times, Hooligan magazine, beestung magazine, and more.
As the Black Writers Fellow, Talia Kimberly Wright explains, “I will be researching the material history of cotton, a fiber I believe to be hugely transformative. I find cotton to be a magnificent device for time travel and memory, and I’ve become curious about how that history can be transformed into something that still holds and uplifts such great weight. During my time as a fellow, I will shadow an African American papermaker who works mostly with cotton and travel to speak with Black cotton farmers located in North Carolina.”
Hand Papermaking, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing traditional and contemporary ideas in the art of hand papermaking through Hand Papermaking, its biannual magazine with tipped-in hand-made paper samples, the quarterly Hand Papermaking Newsletter, and its series of limited-edition portfolios showcasing works by contemporary practitioners and artists working in handmade paper. To learn more about the organization, visit www.handpapermaking.org. To learn more about Hand Papermaking’s Black Writers Fellowship program, visit https://www.handpapermaking.org/get-involved/fellowships.
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