Dear writers,

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our academic writing collective. Writing Academic Synergy is a process of love, community, mindfulness, growth, and desire to create new worlds for ourselves. We aspire to disrupt the old of academia—the conditions that privilege intersecting forms of oppression and silence our voices as diverse writers. We aspire to create what our institutions seldom give us—space to explore, uplift marginalized perspectives, and embrace writing as a pleasurable life-long practice of learning and self-discovery. We aspire to see, acknowledge, and value the humanity of the Black, Brown, Indigenous, and underrepresented writers of our academic community. We reclaim our relationship with writing by unpacking the old to write the new worlds and possibilities we so deserve. We welcome you along this journey in community with us. 

As Founder and Director of Writing Academic Synergy, I come to this work after years of composting and reflecting on my experiences as a student and writer. Growing up, I never considered myself a “good” student and never saw myself as a writer. I procrastinated my way through middle and high school, rarely completed my homework, and lacked self-discipline and academic drive. Yet, the closeted writer in me marveled at opportunities to conduct close readings in my English and Social Studies classes. Although I struggled to grasp the prose of Shakespeare, Faulkner, and other White men of the “canon,” the ability to read a novel or essay to make sense of society was nothing short of fascinating. Reading the words of a text was like a mirror representing the beauty and flaws of our world and individual selves—a space for the underrepresented voices of our culture to be rendered visible, seen, and present. Writing felt like a means to write myself into existence even when society did not want to make space for me as a weird Black boy from Atlanta’s suburbs. I did not see my Blackness nor queerness reflected in the texts I read for school, but my body knew, that through the medium of writing, there was indeed space for folx like me to exist and be whole. 

I took these curiosities with me to college where, as a student-athlete, I majored in English and minored in History. Yet again, my immaturity and ignorance at the time led me to binge write throughout my undergraduate years. I waited until approaching deadlines, churned my writing out the night before (often even the day of—*insert palm to the face emoji*), somehow received high marks, and lived to do much of the same thereafter. My professors and peers would often praise my writing and that thing called “voice,” yet I still did not feel like a writer. I knew my practice of binge writing was not sustainable. I knew there was more behind my resistance and procrastination. At the time, I just could not name it for myself. As I began my masters in African American Studies at UCLA, I sought to figure out what it meant to be a writer, not knowing that my quest would lead me to form Writing Academic Synergy some years later. 

Early in my graduate studies, I realized that the problems I had with writing were more typical than not. I originally thought I was “the only one” struggling. However from my conversations with peers, I discovered that negative feelings and troubled experiences with writing were pervasive and quite normal. Although I was in a routine of frequenting our campus’ writing center for feedback, I was not surprised to learn that many of my peers rarely showed their writing with others out of fear of judgment, nasty reviewer comments, and insensitive critique. We lamented how the high academic theory we were assigned was rather difficult to read and understand in a timely manner—not because we were slow, inept, or poor readers but because the writing was incomprehensible and cared little for audience readability. We rarely received feedback on our writing from instructors. And we struggled to manage our time effectively, failing to make sense of what it meant to “write every day.” We were obligated to write, yet writing seemed to broach nothing more than anxiety, insecurities, and crippling forms of intellectual paralysis. I wondered, how are we, as an academic community, to focus on writing as a primary objective when we have such poor and unhealthy relationships with writing?

I began to nerd-out and seek answers as it did not make sense to me—writing should not feel this painful: “It should be a liberating and fulfilling process” I thought. I turned to reading to address some of my unanswered questions. Resources like Kerry Ann Rockquemore & Tracey Laszloffy’s Black Academic Guide to Winning Tenure—Without Losing Your Soul and Karen Kelsky’s The Professor Is In were helpful to learn about the pillars of research, teaching, and service and the rules of the academic game. To learn how to write for craft, substance, and accessibility, I furthered my search. I read William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. I read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. I read Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. I continue to read books on writing, yet throughout a majority of these reads, I repeatedly ask myself, where are the marginalized and voices of color in conversations about writing as practice and craft? 

We, as Black, Brown, Indigenous, and underrepresented folx, are synonymous with storytelling. It is how we survive and resist; it is how we commune and build; it is how we make sense of ourselves and the world around us. Yet, in service to White supremacy, our experiences, worldviews, and insights as underrepresented writers are marginalized in writing circles. Fortunately, we are beginning to see a change in this oppressive pattern. Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop implores writing instructors to reinvent the classroom and disrupt the “canon” to empower young writers of color and liberate learning for all. Masterclass, the online education platform, has increasingly highlighted courses by writers of color including Roxane Gay, N. K. Jemisin, Walter Mosley, and Amy Tan. By and large however, there is more to be said and documented about writing as a craft particularly from the perspective of academic writers from minoritized communities. Writing Academic Synergy exists to help fill this void. 

We are not doing anything new. Marginalized people have long banded together to create what was not afforded to them elsewhere. Writing Academic Synergy is merely engaging in that conversation, a generational legacy of community—one of synergy and reciprocity, one that aims to pay the work forward for future writers to come. Throughout my doctoral studies, I was fortunate enough to work with mentors and students who showed me what quality relationships can afford our practice as writers. Mentors like Teresa L. McCarty, Mike Rose, and Daniel G. Solórzano showed me what it looks like to show up for students and provide critical yet affirming feedback. They sought to meet each writer where they were developmentally. They sought to leverage the merits of student writing as assets to strengthen underdeveloped areas of the work. They sought to build rather than tear down. These qualities continue to shape my approach to writing mentorship. More than they may know, pouring into my students and reading the work of my colleagues has sharpened my awareness as a thinker, facility as an educator, and skillset as a writer. Reading someone else’s writing—regardless of whether it is in draft or “final” form—is an opportunity to see parts of the writer they rarely show to the outside world. It is a chance to listen for the rhythm, nuance, and silence that the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives rarely allows. It is an honor to be in relation to and community with one another as reader and writer—seeing the “I” in each other’s “thou.” Writing Academic Synergy is an intention to normalize these qualities in the everyday lives of academic writers.  

Thank you for making it through this lengthy message. In showing you my journey, I hope you read your own process and coming to the work you do as a writer and being in this thing called life. I invite you to continue along this journey with us. Black feminist writer and sci-fi pioneer, Octavia Butler reminds us that the only thing constant, the only thing real in this world is change. Change yields opportunity. Change brings growth. Change is, quite frankly, beautiful. Writing Academic Synergy looks to embrace the changing landscape of academia and the world around it. We are here to serve community, so as our community of writers change so will we. Naming and embracing change’s permanence make the work not only pleasurable but also liberating for us all. 

With love and solidarity, happy writing and composting, my friends!

Michael W. Moses II, PhD

Founder & Director

Writing Academic Synergy