WELCOME to VONA
The Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation
We are the workshop for Writers-of-Color
The Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA) was founded by Elmaz Abinader, Junot Díaz, Victor Díaz and Diem Jones in 1999. Each envisioned an arts organization that could change the landscape of the literary world by supporting writers-of-color through workshops, mentorship, community building, and information sharing. Over 2,400 writers from around the globe have participated in VONA. Many have gone onto publish award-winning books, enter writing programs, teach and publish. For nineteen years, VONA has nurtured writers-of-color and have influenced change in our perception of whose voices can be heard.
VONA is back home in the Bay Area, CA and offers workshops in fiction, poetry, memoir, essay writing, speculative fiction, genre writing, political content in poetry-fiction-prose, graphic novel, travel writing, and residencies in prose & poetry. VONA also hosts a free faculty reading, supports alumni events in cities across the country, provides an online forum for literary opportunities and community writing programs and events.
Democratizing poetic knowledge and craft. Creating and holding a freeing, nurturing and supportive space for us to be able to take risks as people and as writers. Giving us opportunities to practice material generation and radical revision. Challenging us to think beyond what’s already on the page, to think radically about possibility and potential. Fiction 2016