Write Like Us is an equity-based creative writing program at five Twin Cities metro-area community colleges: Anoka-Ramsey Community College, Century College, Minneapolis Community, Technical College, Normandale Community College, and North Hennepin Community College. Write Like Us centers and celebrates the work of BIPOC writers and writing students, fostering literary mentorship and leadership as it builds a platform for shared stories, voices, and lived experiences.
Write Like Us will host four author-mentors in residence during the 2022-2023 academic year. The residencies will feature local BIPOC author-mentors who will work throughout the year with BIPOC mentees—students at each of our campuses. Write Like Us hopes to increase BIPOC recruitment, retention, and representation in our Associate of Fine Arts (AFA) and creative writing certificate programs—programs with high persistence rates, graduation, and transfer rates.
Write Like Us National Authors

Kiese Laymon

Shannon Gibney
Upcoming Events
Ross Gay & Friends Tuesday, April 4
Su Hwang, Marlin Jenkins, & Mentor Michael Kleber-Diggs
Carmen Maria Machado Thursday, April 27
Mentor Nicola Koh & Mentor Taiwana Shambley
Literary Careers Symposium Friday, April 14
Bao Phi, Carmen Gimenez, Halee Kirkwood, Arleta Little & Mentor Michael Kleber-Diggs
Write Like Us Local Author-Mentors
Write Like Us author-mentors will visit creative writing classrooms at each of the five participating colleges during the fall and spring semesters of 2022-2023 and will work individually with five scholarship mentees from each of the five campuses (twenty total) throughout the academic year. Each mentor will interview one of the nationally prominent authors in public on-stage events.
LM (Lisa Marie) Brimmer
Michael Kleber-Diggs
Nicola Koh
Taiwana Shambley

Kiarra Ballard
Bio
Coming Soon!

Brian Kayega
Bio
Brian Kayega is a fiction writer from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. He often writes absurd fiction centering around themes of hope, despair, and finding purpose. Brian is a student at Century College majoring in Computer Information Systems and pursuing a Certificate in Creative Writing. After graduating from Century, he plans to continue his studies at a four-year university. When he isn’t writing and studying, Brian reads “peak fiction” such as chainsaw man, focuses on self-improvement, and plays Monopoly(very competitively).

Ofelia Louise Pineda
Bio
Coming Soon!
Sophia Tatge
(Portrait coming soon!)
Bio
Sophia Tatge is an Ethiopian American fiction writer from White Bear Lake, MN. She is a film enthusiast and particularly a horror genre fan. While her work mainly comprises themes like identity, sexuality, and race, she explores them across many forms of writing, including prose, poetry, and screenplays.
Write Like Us Support
Write Like Us is funded by Minnesota State’s Multi-Campus Collaboration grants supporting Minnesota State’s Equity 2030 goals and a generous donation from Thomson Reuters. Minnesota State is a consortium of thirty state colleges and seven universities in Minnesota. Equity 2030 aims to close the educational equity gaps across race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic location by the end of the decade at every Minnesota State college and university. If you wish to donate to the Write Like Us program, please contact writelikeus@minnestate.edu or see https://www.century.edu/giving/ for other options.