Immigrants have always been at the heart of every part of life in our country, and our beautiful city of Nashville is no different in that regard. Increasingly, Nashville’s immigrant communities, both up front and behind the scenes, bring fresh growth in culture and the arts to the city, drawing national attention.

Founded in 2016 by Anna Silverstein, the Immigrants Write Workshop, an essential program of The Porch, has met regularly every fall and spring since, in locations from the Curb Center at Vanderbilt University to the large, beautiful community center of Tennessee Immigrants and Refugee Rights Coalition, or TIRRC, in the Antioch area. During the pandemic, the program pivoted to Zoom, and we’ve continued to leverage that technology since to accommodate participants.  I’ve had the delight and privilege to direct the program since August of 2019, and have seen it grow in many unexpected directions. We’ve released two anthologies of writing by immigrants and the children of immigrants from many different cultural backgrounds. We’ve held small readings for our immediate families and larger community parties and presentations. Our workshop members come to us because, in the words of veteran member Javier Blanco, IW is “one of the most diverse creative communities in Nashville.” 

In fall 2024, the IW Workshop will launch a new initiative, one that’s been a dream of mine for several years. Through an IW Fellows program, we’ll serve community members right where they work and live, as Fellows will convene gatherings in neighborhoods and community centers that keep original cultures and native languages thriving.

In the earliest years of Immigrants Write, our workshop was called ‘Creative Writing for Immigrants and Refugees,’ a name that directly conveyed the aims of the program. Members at all levels of English language skill in both speaking and writing were, and are, welcome, and bilingual writing encouraged. At each meeting members read model works, often by immigrant authors, in a variety of literary genres, followed by time to write and share the pieces begun that day or from earlier sessions. IW member Doris Palomino explains that for her, like many who initially joined, the desire to be or become a writer was not first and foremost on her mind. “I came to IW to improve my English skills,” she says. However, the powerful impacts of self-expression and artmaking in community soon oriented Doris toward a larger and unexpected pursuit. “Now I cannot stop writing,” she says. 

Prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, members from countries and cultural contexts as far apart as Brazil, Mexico, India, Peru, Thailand, Germany, Ethiopia, Russia, Nepal, and Cameroon attended our Monday night meetings. They grappled with long hours in traffic, coming from towns in nearby counties after busy work days; they arranged extra childcare, made snacks to share, helped each other to their cars on rainy nights, and relished each other’s company and the chance to learn to talk about not only their feelings and ideas, but also the craft of writing prose and poetry. Sometimes they wrote poetic advice columns, sometimes lyrical letters to loved ones long gone.

One Monday night in 2020, a Curb Center staff member came rushing in to tell us that the first case of the virus had just been found in Nashville, and its carrier had been in that very building earlier that day. We all had to pick up and leave in a rush, not knowing when we would be able to write together again.

We didn’t have long to wait. Like communities across the planet, our resilient workshop regrouped on Zoom just two weeks later with nearly all active members in attendance. Our ranks swelled, with  new members joining us soon after from Nashville and far beyond. Creative writing proved to be a lifeline during the pandemic. Javier Blanco, a workshop member originally from Mexico, says, “IW was my main social community, besides work, during Covid times.” Javier, like many participants, expanded his writing activities with The Porch beyond the IW workshop, winning a writing award and publishing his work in Reckoning: Tennessee Writers on 2020, an anthology published by The Porch with support from the Tennessee Arts Commission. 

By 2021, we found that the workshop had outgrown its original name. To reflect our assertive new nature and place in the community, we became Immigrants Write. In this new phase, we began offering leadership opportunities for our members as they developed their craft and knowledge. In every eight-week session writing prompts and sprints are designed and led by members. With facilitator guidance only if desired, member-leaders volunteer their time and energy to their peers in the workshop. Summer 2022 brought us a member-led, three-part workshop in text-plus-image writing as we explored the award-winning children’s book Watercress. Grant funding and a generous in-kind contribution by local partner Parnassus Books provided each member a new copy of the book, and the efforts of local writer Margaret Kingsbury, editor of Citycast’s new Nashville newsletter, led to a Zoom visit by author Andrea Wang, who discussed her parents’ experiences as immigrants and her own as their daughter, the craft of writing the book, and the creative opportunities that text-plus-image writing provides. In sessions related to  Watercress, one IW member taught us drawing basics; another taught us about engaging the art of remembering to create the original works we conjured. 

Another project, a fundraising workshop in Food Writing, welcomed local chefs and farmers to present their own stories and favorite works in the genre. They led our IW members and other Nashville-area attendees in generating their own creative pieces. In Spring 2023, we launched an anthology, A Lighthouse, with a book release party at TIRRC, sharing food and camaraderie as contributing members gave readings both in person and via Zoom.

Over these years, our membership has grown a bit beyond our city’s borders, as some of our beloved members have moved away and others have joined from afar. One veteran member Zoomed into the anthology launch from her home country, which she couldn’t leave due to political unrest. Member Nallely Prater expresses best the reason that out-of-town members continue to join the workshop remotely: “I found a welcoming, safe community in IW.”

As we continue to expand, we recognize that immigrants from all walks of life are served in our workshop. We are charged with the beautiful task of attending to the substantial need for self-expression, to the very urgent human need to be heard. Local poet Christine Hall comments that often art “…is about the things we can’t make sense of, so we translate them to our senses …where we can process them.” That's what we hope to offer through our creative writing workshop every session, every meeting, every year. 

In our Fall 2024-Spring 2025 season, we’re excited to launch a new initiative to help us achieve our mission. Beginning with a September community launch event—date to be determined shortly by The Porch—Immigrants Write will pilot a new Fellowship Program, through which local immigrants engaged with writing through their home cultural organizations and partners, can apply to join our first three-member cohort. These three Fellows will participate in the Workshop and receive mentorship, materials, and a stipend to bring the art of creative writing back to their home communities. It is our deepest hope that our IW Fellows and the new writers they gather will come to feel, as veteran member Subramani Mani says, that they are “all in to pursue writing. It is such a joy.”

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