InsideOut Alum Hajjar Baban wins $90,000 Soros Fellowship for New Americans to continue pursuing her art. We couldn’t be more proud. Check out Hajjar’s InsideOut journey in our Student Stories.
This year marks the first step of InsideOut’s next 25-year journey. We’ve celebrated this occasion by lifting up five stories from five different eras of our history, from our inaugural class in the mid-90s to our most recent graduates. The stories (which you can explore…
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2015-2020: Aja “Citywide Poets brought me to the realization that everybody is individual and important.” Before I started Citywide Poets, I wasn’t doing poetry in secret, but I did feel like an underground artist. It started off as a class assignment back in sixth grade and…
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2010-2015: Candance Candance performing her original work at InsideOut’s inaugural Share the Light benefit. (2017) Why I Write by Candance I write when people say I taIk too much. I write to set the world aflame. I write to speak for those who are afraid…
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2005-2010: Justin Rogers “Citywide Poets was pivotal in my social and professional life because it offered me a sense of direction and hope.” When Writer-in-Residence Nandi Comer found me in 12th grade of high school, I was a very shy student trying to navigate where…
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2000-2005: Jasmine Dorsey “This program is the reason I graduated high school.” I didn’t belong to any crew or group in high school because I always felt so different. I always felt alone because I felt too mature to even have friends in high school….
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1995-2000: Michael R. Jackson Photo Credit: Zack DeZon “Literally every aspect of my writing career came because a teacher encouraged me.” I’m Michael R. Jackson, and I’m from Detroit, Michigan. I grew up on the west side of Detroit, right off the Southfield Freeway. Growing…
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Thriving Together is a three-year-long environmental justice and creative writing program led by the Detroit Zoological Society and InsideOut Literary Arts. In the summer of 2020, we quickly transitioned the program online after stay-at-home orders were enacted. “While students would normally be wearing waders in the Detroit River and…
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InsideOut Literary Arts was held up as a literary organization that nurtures and uplifts Black voices across the United States.