The Shapiro Center for Writing, located at 116 Mt. Vernon Street, works to help members of the Wesleyan community develop their academic and creative writing skills. By hosting writers and book readings, it is a space where the English language blossoms. This academic year, the Shapiro Center brought three globally renowned writers into its newly launched Distinguished Writers in Residence Program for the 2022-23 academic year. This year’s writers include Mahogany L. Browne, Merve Emre, and Yuri Herrera. The Argus had the opportunity to sit down with Emre and Herrera to learn about their writing processes and what brought them to the University, among other topics.

Browne is an accomplished poet and curator. She is the director of Just Media, a media literacy program designed to support criminal justice leaders and community members and to share current stories of grassroots organizing. She is also the creator of the Woke Baby Book Fair and the first writer in residence at Lincoln Center. Some of her recent pieces include “Black Girl Magic,” “Chlorine Sky,” “Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice,” and “Woke Baby.” She will be hosting a reading of her work in Russell House on Wednesday, Oct. 19. 

Emre is an Associate Professor of American Literature at Oxford University, a contributing critic for The New Yorker magazine, and an acclaimed author of award-winning books including “The Ferrante Letters,” “The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway,” and “The Personality Brokers.” Currently, Emre is teaching a course called “Love and Other Useless Pursuits,” inspired by her up-and-coming book of the same title. This course covers the topics of affect and aesthetics, and features a spectrum of writers, including Plato, Margaret Cavendish, Goethe, Emerson, Virginia Woolf, Lauren Belrant, bell hooks, and James Baldwin. When asked why she decided to teach this course, Emre told The Argus that she considered the role that students would be able to play. 

“It was such a big concept for a book that I thought I wouldn’t be able to write it, or it wouldn’t feel real to me until I taught it,” Emre explained. “And that is what teaching has helped to do. A big part of that has been the amazing class discussions that we’ve been having. Students have really brought it.”

Before coming to Wesleyan, Emre taught for four years at Oxford University, which uses a tutorial-based teaching model. 

“At Oxford, most of what we teach is tutorial-based, which is one-on-one or two-on-one,” Emre said. “I think that what I’ve been fascinated about is how the students seem to learn from one another, how they are not at all shy to disagree with each other, but in a very respectful way.” 

Emre works to create an atmosphere of open-mindedness in her classes at the University and has seen firsthand how it shapes students.  

“One of my students who was in here just before you said,  ‘I come into class thinking one thing, and I always leave thinking something [else],’” Emre said. “I think that that is really a product of how engaged and generous and just how smart the students in the class are.”

When asked about her preferred environment to write in, Emre was quick to indicate her need for absolute silence.

“I can’t write with any kind of distraction. It has to be totally quiet,” Emre said. 

In fact, when she is creating a new piece of work, she turns off the Wi-Fi on her computer so that she is not distracted by notifications. 

Aside from working as an author and professor, Emre is also a writer for The New Yorker. When asked about that work, Emre spoke about her relationship with her editor, Leo Carey.

“He’s very good at bringing an author to me [who] he thinks will spark my mind,” Emre said. “Writing for The New Yorker gives me an opportunity to produce criticism that is both appreciative and interpretive. You don’t have to rely on a highly technical and somewhat exclusive meta-language.”

In many ways, Emre expressed, writing for The New Yorker is an extension of what she does in the classroom.

For students looking to pursue a career in writing, Emre had one fundamental piece of advice. 

“Read as much as you can,” Emre emphasized. “Take English classes, take comparative literature classes, take history classes, take classes where that reading can be put to good use in the form of writing. It’s extremely hard work, and you need to be ready to work as hard as you can.”

Another writer in residency this year is Professor Yuri Herrera. Herrera is a Mexican political scientist, a tenured professor at Tulane University, and the author of several acclaimed books.  His book “Signs Preceding the End of the World” has received many awards, including the 2016 Best Translated Book Award. This fall, Herrera is teaching a class called “Creative Writing in Spanish,” which is jointly listed under The Shapiro Center and the Romance Languages department. It offers students the chance to develop their technical writing skills in Spanish, widen their vocabulary, and become familiar with literary terminology. 

For Herrera, his residency at The Shapiro Writing Center has allowed him to embark upon something new and see another part of the world. 

“It’s a great opportunity right now for me to start with a different project and at the same time, you know, I think traveling is good,” Herrera said. “It’s good for the soul and good for the mind.”

Traveling and working in different places continue to be important parts of Herrera’s process. 

“In general, I think traveling is good because it makes you take a harder look at what you think constitutes ‘you’ in your language, in your country, in your identity, in general,” Herrera said.  “It makes you more open to other practices and people.” 

The topic of migration plays an integral role in Herrera’s work. He sees it as one of the most important issues facing society, and believes that migration shapes culture and affects how people understand the world. In terms of his time so far at Wesleyan, Herrera had nothing but positive things to say about his class. 

“My students are like pioneers, and so we are discovering this experience together,” Herrera said. “I have a small class of very smart, very committed students, and the way I teach this class is not so much about specific techniques. But about the students developing their own voices. So it’s a very free class in that sense. It’s mostly doing a lot of exercises with the Spanish language so that they discover how they can work with it, how they can enjoy it, and when they enjoy it.”

Professor Herrera also shared some of his favorite places to work and write. 

“I just finished a novel that is coming out in Spanish in a month and a half, and hopefully in the next year or the following year in English,” Herrera said. “And that one, I wrote it in an old shed [that I] turned into an office in my house in New Orleans. It’s a place where the previous owners did carpentry. It’s an old shed. An old shed made of wood taken from boats. So it’s a really nice space. I like most of my books, I have written them at home. You know, I like having a big table, having a big window with a lot of light.”

In addition to ongoing events featuring the writers-in-residence, the Shapiro Center will host Brenda Navarro, a Mexican writer, for an open conversation about her book, “Empty Houses,” (which Herrera has encouraged students to read) on Monday, Nov. 14.
Kelly Zhang can be reached kzhang01@wesleyan.edu.