The Hellebore Press and HUES Foundation are thrilled to announce the 2020-2021 HUES Fellows.
Please join us in congratulating:
Daschielle Louis, HUES Fellow, Poetry 2020-2021
Yamilette Vizcaíno, HUES Fellow, Creative Nonfiction 2020-2021
We’d like to thank everybody that applied to the HUES Fellowship. We’d also like to take the time to thank everyone who shared the word about the HUES Foundation’s mission to celebrate and uplift BIPOC poets, writers, and artists. We are incredibly humbled by the response and look forward to collaborating with Daschielle & Yamilette on their chapbooks in the Fall & Winter.
Please take a moment to read more about Daschielle Louis & Yamilette Vizcaíno. A note from Denise Nichole, Founder of HUES Foundation, and Editor in Chief of The Hellebore Press may also be located below.
2020-2021 HUES Fellows
Daschielle Louis
HUES Poetry Fellow 2020-2021
Daschielle Louis is a Haitian American poet, writer, and graphic artist from South Florida: her work uses fluid folkloric horror to examine blackness, womanhood, Haitian culture and migration. Daschielle’s poetry and short stories have appeared in spaces such as Token Magazine, Juked, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Moko Magazine, Panku Literary and Arts Magazine, Rise Up Review, Transition Magazine at The Hutchins Center, Vagabond City Lit, WusGood Magazine and Dear Damsel. She has received fellowships from Winter Tangerine, Pink Door Writing Retreat, The Watering Hole, and The Hues Foundation. Her literary work is housed on her website daschiellelouis.com.
Author’s Statement
I want alive for us.
The systemic murder and oppression of generations of Black folk in America is indescribable. We are in a shift where we are protesting, and fighting, and angry because we do not hold the right to be alive. To be free of fear from those who use imagined fear against us as justification for our murder. Black women and trans women and men get silenced in the chaos, and I want alive for us, still. Where do we go in a country that forgets our missing girls? That overlooks the violent deaths of trans women being lost in real time at the hands of the same men we scream in protest for? That takes us in our homes, in front of our children? Who prays for us except us? We are in the beginning of a revolution, and we are fighting for the right to live. Putting our collective bodies and voices on the line because we are done being conscious of our abuser’s feelings.
The Black Lives Matter movement began because Florida feared Trayvon Martin, a Black boy walking home in the middle of the night, instead of the coward who murdered him. At the acquittal, my heart sank. Because I knew so many boys that could have been Trayvon. I could have been the kid walking home at night, from a friend’s house, from the corner store, from the library, like I’d done so many time back then. When Florida failed to protect Trayvon, they failed to protect us. And even still, with the death of Tony McDade and Oluwatoyin ‘Toyin’ Salau in Tallahassee, they’ve failed. But we continue to fight alongside our pain because a change is going to come, and me and my people, we’ll be ready.
☼
During my time as a 2020 HUES Fellow in Poetry, I will be writing towards my chapbook, which is an exploration of self and the places I call home. During this moment of self-isolation, I have turned to my art more to express what I’m finding difficult to express during this time. Through oil paintings and digital portraits, I’ve been trying to see us, Black folks, alive. I’ve been trying to remember us happy, and filled with life, and music, and laughter, and shit talking, and dancing, and belly full, and community. As I find my words again, I want to write those memories. There is so much pain and sadness in the world right now. There always has been for us. I want to continue to write the moments that get us by, even with the chaos still happening in the background.
Yamilette Vizcaíno
HUES Creative Nonfiction Fellow, 2020-2021
Yamilette Vizcaíno is an Afrolatinx writer and educator based in Brooklyn. She was a 2020 Tin House Winter Workshop attendee and the winner of the 2019 Cosmonauts Avenue Nonfiction prize. She is the 2020 Oyster River Pages Creative Nonfiction intern and her work can be found at The Offing, -ismo magazine, and Watermelanin Magazine. Her mother still thinks that she peaked at eight, when she single-handedly polished off a turkey leg bigger than her head.
Author’s Statement
I am an AfroLatinx, queer artist, and my art is writing. I’m a writer because of what I’m after, and what I’m after is the solace, joy, and elevation that comes with being heard. I’ve always described my work as a sort of reaching. I didn’t used to be able to articulate why it takes that shape, but I know better now. What propels me is that same force that has always propelled those that, in assessing their circumstances, have found that they are not free—I write for those who not only recognize and despise that feeling, but who take it a step further and recognize and despise their own contributions to it.
Below is an excerpt of an essay of mine that addresses one way this conundrum presented itself when I was an educator of predominantly Black students:
ASIDE:
Apologies have a convention too.
You never say “I’m sorry you”
You always say “I’m sorry I”
But I am just like the world that made me:
I see Black girls and my structures break.
I’m sorry you will hurt.
I’m sorry you will know it was preventable.
I’m sorry you will see me there, in that memory.
I’m sorry I let it happen.
I want my fellow Black siblings to know that I know: we can’t stop until all of our Black siblings—yes, the women siblings too, yes, the disabled siblings too, yes, the trans siblings too, yes, yes, yes—until ALL of us can be free to live our lives. Now more than ever, I just want you all to know that I know. I know. And I’m here.
I’m here: reaching, fighting even harder than before for all of us.
#BlackLivesMatter #BlackTransLivesMatter #SayHerName
A Note on Black Liberation by Founder, Denise Nichole
Thank you for supporting HUES Foundation & The Hellebore Press. Aren’t our fellows amazing?
While the HUES Foundation is a new organization, our mission to celebrate and uplift BIPOC authors, poets, and writers is sure to make an impact.
HUES remains committed to amplifying the narratives and perspectives of BIPOC poets, writers, educators, and artists from around the globe. It is our hope to cultivate an educational organization that is by BIPOC and for BIPOC. This community of innovators and game changers who use their art and craft to mobilize the movement for Black and Brown lives- through creative expression and transformative healing- may begin here, but it certainly will not end here.
The work continues now.
Time and time again, we see the ways in which the publishing industry exploits us.
Time and time again, we see the ways in which educational institutions fail us.
And it doesn’t end there. We see these systematic injustices in all fields and sectors: from medicine to tech and the arts.
Our response? Enough. We refuse to settle for the status quo. We refuse to remain silent. And we are among a new generation of poets, writers, and artists who will lead the way to change.
The Hellebore Press & HUES Foundation empowers our community to lead this revolution. To restore the promise of hope and liberty unto Black, Brown, & Indigenous folks. To demand justice for Black Trans Lives. To resist all forms of oppression, discrimination, and violence that is fueled by racism, prejudice, and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and vitriol.
As the Founder of HUES Foundation and Editor in Chief of The Hellebore Press, I will continue to practice fierce compassion. I will listen. I will be transparent, open, and honest. I will advocate for our communities. I will create resources and opportunities that serve BIPOC. I will support the endeavors of Yamilette Vizcaíno & Daschielle Louis (and all future and upcoming authors & fellows) as they reach new heights.
For now, I recognize the importance of radical rest and self care.
Stay tuned for more news and updates about our HUES Fellows in the upcoming Fall 2020 – Winter 2021 season.
You won’t want to miss what Daschielle & Yamilette do next!
