November doesn’t have to be the cruelest month. — Last year, I got the idea into my head to try NaNoWriMo. I am a student in Antioch University’s MFA program for Creative Writing, and I needed a way to jumpstart my work for the next project period. For anyone not familiar with the organization, NaNoWriMo is short for National…

We are individuals, not symbols — You have no doubt seen photos like this on college websites: multiracial groups of students and faculty working together, having a great time. You will find mission statements on these websites avowing values of equity, diversity, and inclusion. …

We need to stop making people feel less than for not conforming to expectations — If you have read my recent article, you know that I have not had an easy time in academia. My thirteen-year career has been fraught with delays, discord, and disappointments. Along the way, I have wondered what I could have done differently to change the outcome. I have come to…

Our anxiety is only getting worse. — I sat down to speak with therapist and long-time musician Bill Harrison about the challenges his clients face during this time of police brutality, protests, and reckoning with America’s long history of racism. Bill joined me over Zoom from his home in Chicago, IL. Sarah Valentine: What motivated you to…

Let’s ditch the White Savior trope once and for all — In the summer of 2000, just after I graduated from college, I became an International Rotary Volunteer. I taught English to children, teens, and adults in the far-flung capital of Kamchatka, Russia. The work was fun and challenging. …

It’s academic job season, and I have mixed feelings about going back on the market — Thirteen years ago, when I walked on stage to receive my doctorate in Russian literature at Princeton University, I felt like the world was opening before me. I wore my flowing black regalia with its broad orange velvet stripes, my sash from the pan-African graduation ceremony, and my puffy eight-cornered…

I grew up in Pittsburgh in a white family who taught me to identify as white. Only at age 27 did I learn that I had a Black biological father. — As a mixed-race woman who has internalized racism and white privilege, I undertook the journey of integrating an identity that felt “other” but at the same time spoke truth to experiences I had always known but failed to recognize. …