The Optics of Opportunity
The story of a literary fellowship that maybe wasn’t so strange at all
Published in
13 min readJun 19, 2019
--
“Hey, nigger, nigger, nigger,” Jackson Taylor, the writing instructor, called out, pointing his finger at me from across the Chelsea loft that had been renovated into our classroom. I and 13 writers had been invited to participate in a mysterious writing fellowship funded by the Barnes & Noble founder…