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In 2003, CBL began partnering with local elementary, middle, and high schools to present a culturally responsive approach using the literary arts to teach reading, writing, and literature. Re-Envisioning Our Lives through Literature (ROLL) introduces students to books written by Black authors and to teaching artists who work in the classroom with students on writing creative fiction and nonfiction, and poetry. ROLL has had partnerships with Bedford Academy High School, Benjamin Banneker Academy, Boys and Girls High School, Brooklyn School for Music and Theatre, Clara Barton High School, East New York Family Academy, High School for Global Citizenship, Medgar Evers College Preparatory School, New Visions Charter High School for the Humanities III, P.S. 375 Jackie Robinson Elementary School, Performing Arts and Technology High School, and others.

School closures due to the COVID pandemic limited the scope of the program in the years 2020 and 2021.

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The Dr. Edith Rock Writing Workshop for Elders is a collaboration of the Center for Black Literature with Siloam Presbyterian Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. This workshop, established in 2003 and originally called The Writing Project for Older African Americans, encourages participants to recall their personal histories so that their recollections can be crafted into inspirational memoirs and stories. These writings are then compiled into anthologies and published in an annual journal called Tales of Our Times.

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Formerly called the North Country Institute and Retreat for Writers of Color, the Wild Seeds Retreat for Writers of Color was renamed in honor of Octavia E. Butler and her novel Wild Seed, the Patternist Series Book 1.

The Retreat provides writers of color with an opportunity to meet other writers; to workshop their writing among peers; and to engage with published writers about concerns and issues related to writing and publishing.  The first Writers’ Retreat, held in 2004, was highly successful and featured the internationally acclaimed poet Sonia Sanchez and authors Tony Medina and Indira Ganesan.

Read more here: Sowers of words | News | pressrepublican.com

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The John Oliver Killens Reading Series was established in 2010 to provide authors, poets, scholars, and writers from the African diaspora with opportunities to expound on their work while in dialogue with other writers and a knowledgeable moderator. The event has featured Malaika Adero, Nicole Dennis-Benn, Ernessa T. Carter, Marita Golden, Willie Perdomo, Sophfronia Scott, Nicole Sealey, Jacqueline Woodson, and Tiphanie Yanique, among others.

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At the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020,  Dr. Brenda Greene announced the newest program of the Center, a Monthly Book Club that would meet online. The inaugural gathering on April 29, 2020, was a tremendous success. There was a lively discussion of Edwidge Danticat’s powerful work, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist At Work. To date, the group has read works by Brit Bennett,  Lucille Clifton, Brittney Cooper, Bernardine Evaristo, Marita Golden, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Marlon James, Wayétu Moore, Kevin Powell, Tracy K. Smith, Jesmyn Ward, Colson Whitehead, and many other accomplished authors.

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Fiction Writing Workshop

The Center for Black Literature’s Fiction Writing Workshop is a four-week workshop which has been led by best-selling author Donna Hill. It is designed to help writers hone their craft.