“When people ask how I see my life panning out, I say I want to be like Carolyn Holbrook. I want to be that mentor who is a familiar presence in the Twin Cities literary arts community, who mentors generations of writers, with students who say “She changed my life.” You are a concrete image of what I’m aiming to be — an elder in training.”
— Taiwana Shambley to Carolyn Holbrook, Minnesota Women’s Press 2023
Photo credit: Sarah Whiting
Abolition and the Audacity of Writing at Your Own Pace: An Interview with Taiwana Shambley
— The Loft Literary Center, November 2023
“My introduction to the literary arts community was when I was maybe 14–15 years old. I started rapping with my cousins. I performed for the first time in late 2015 at this open mic hosted by TruArtSpeaks. Through that community, I met mentors, peers, and people, who just always gave me really good advice. It was putting me on game. I'm going to strengthen my writing skills and my craft. The arts community kind of became an alternative space for me, a second home. I didn't know I needed it at the time, my home life wasn't the best. My school life wasn't the best. The arts community was a space where I felt affirmed. I felt like I could get the liberation I wasn't getting in other spaces. I'm really into education and teaching artists' work because I recognize the power it has to provide an alternative source of love and care for a young person who may not have it at home or at school. A Teaching Artist’s work is usually focused on community. When people ask me what I do I rarely say ‘teacher.’ I always say ‘teaching artist,’ because there is a distinction. A teaching artist is a practitioner, someone who does the art and teaches it. Sometimes we have educators, no shade to them, who don't practice. They just teach it.”
— Taiwana Shambley, The Loft Literary Center 2023
Daily Inspiration: Meet Taiwana Shambley
— Voyage Minnesota, August 2023
“Today we’d like to introduce you to Taiwana Shambley.
Hi Taiwana, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I came of age as a spoken-word baby living with disabilities in Saint Paul, Minnesota. If you asked us, my cousins and I, eight, nine, ten years old, ran the North End neighborhood, zipping our bikes up and down Maryland Avenue and Rice Street and all the side streets with our crew of neighborhood kids. First, it was them, crafting makeshift studios in their bedroom closet and the basement; then it was me, recording singles for full-length projects in my childhood home. We were TrueVisionz Music Group.
I stumbled into my first open mic at 15 or 16 years old and found my people, a community of poets, writers, and artists powered by TruArtSpeaks, and competed in poetry slams for years before transitioning into writing fiction in college.”
— Taiwana Shambley, Voyage Minnesota 2023
‘WRITE LIKE US’ EVENT ENCOURAGES YOUNG WRITERS THROUGH MENTORING
— CCX Media, April 2023
“The mentor-mentee relationship creates a safe and empowering environment for aspiring writers. NHCC creative writing student Trei Betow is being mentored by St. Paul writer Taiwana Shambley.
‘Every time he and I meet he has a new book idea and he’s just this endless source of energy,’ says Shambley.
Shambley, who’s transgender and Black, says it’s still a challenge for BIPOC and LGBTQ people to get their work published. But she’s hopeful young writers and programs like ‘Write Like Us’ are starting to turn that page.
‘I think our young adults, our gen(eration) Z, our millennials are really being intentional in shifting us toward (equity),’ says Shambley.”
— Written by Jason Melillo, CCX Media
‘Dear Neighbors’: Poster project brings powerful messages to Rondo and Frogtown
— Pioneer Press, Jan 2021
Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, left, Taiwana Shambley and Aki Shibata in the exhibit space at XIAART Gallery on University Avenue in St. Paul, with enlargements of the posters they’re giving away in the “Dear Neighbor” project. (Photo & Caption by Kathy Berdan)
“Two St. Paul artists have a message for their neighbors in St. Paul’s Rondo and Frogtown neighborhoods. Actually, it’s many messages delivered through powerful words and images…”