Today we’d like to introduce you to Taiwana Shambley.
Hi Taiwana, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I came of age as a spoken-word baby living with disabilities in Saint Paul, Minnesota. If you asked us, my cousins and I, eight, nine, ten years old, ran the North End neighborhood, zipping our bikes up and down Maryland Avenue and Rice Street and all the side streets with our crew of neighborhood kids. First, it was them, crafting makeshift studios in their bedroom closet and the basement; then it was me, recording singles for full-length projects in my childhood home. We were TrueVisionz Music Group.
I stumbled into my first open mic at 15 or 16 years old and found my people, a community of poets, writers, and artists powered by TruArtSpeaks, and competed in poetry slams for years before transitioning into writing fiction in college. While I was telling my story on stages across the country, I’m also grateful for the skills I learned during this era of youth: TruArtSpeaks taught me how to be an arts organizer, what it meant to host, plan, and staff events, and the critical pedagogy behind that work; and in college I learned how to direct action organize on college campuses while also studying black radical tradition.
I graduated from college in 2021 and have been living my best life since: I survived a suicide attempt in December of that year, led the creation of a youth prison abolition campaign through June 2022, and co-organizing a new and innovative wealth building grant for Black descendants of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Currently, I teach creative writing and English full-time at PiM Arts High School, and community-based workshops, classes, and residencies through the Loft Literary Center and other contractors, with the occasional spoken word performance, drizzled into the year.
I’m a Black transwoman, an eldest sibling, a younger god sibling, a student of Voodoo and the Orisha, and an MFA student. Trust me, I do find time to club with my homegirls, brunch around the Twin Cities, nap, and enjoy life indoors.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The question of obstacles or challenges is an interesting one cause I’m still living it, so I don’t yet have the language to talk about the thing. What I’ll share is an internal conflict I have which is wanting to publish my first work of fiction ASAP so I can live my best writer life, even though I know I still have a ways to go be the great writer I want to be. I drool at the thought of spending my days writing award-winning novels & short stories, napping between writing sessions, then doing whatever with friends, then writing again, then sleeping 10 to 12 hours every single day.
And living that kind of life means making enough income from writing. (Because, under capitalism, housing and food and other essential human livelihood things are commodified and whatnot, so we have to sell our labor to make a profit to pay for housing and food and the others) I’ve been so close to just going ahead and sending my work into an agent and publisher (folks are interested too!) but the people in my life, my dearest friends, mentors, and family have continually advised me to slow down – so I listen.
There are still days when I have mini-manic episodes of trying to draft my whole novel in one night.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an abolitionist fiction writer & teaching artist who writes stories, teaches stories, performs stories, and shifts stories through an abolitionist praxis.
Contact Info:
- Website: taiwanashambley.com
- Instagram: @taiwanashambley
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taiwanashambley
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taiwanashambley
- Twitter: @taiwanashambley
Image Credits
Diana Siegel-Garcia
