Who We Are.

Archives as Muse: a Harlem Storytelling Project was initiated by the MFA Program in Creative Writing, English Department at The City College of New York, CUNY.  In 2019 we received a grant from the LUCE Foundation to fund this project.

We’re housing this project in the MFA program in creative writing because we are compilists and storytellers.  We dig for the potential stories that are in the archives. As a program dedicated to diversity, excellence and inclusion we realize that contemporary writers of all genres engage in the “archives” to research, challenge and inform their work.  

What we do.

This project reflects CCNY’s commitment to connect with, serve, understand, and celebrate the Harlem community while enhancing the community’s own tools for memory, research, and creativity.    

The CCNY MFA Program of Creative Writing recognizes that we are located at the site of the Harlem Renaissance, the literary, social, and cultural explosion of creative and intellectual work by Black artists, poets, novelists, philosophers, activists, and musicians in the 1920s. We want to dive into that rich literary history and acknowledge our link to this history.  We also want to recognize the original peoples who lived in Manhatta (Manhattan) the home of the Lenape tribe.

Our hope is that this website serves as a portal regardless of where you are in your storytelling journey.  Whether or not you are a writer, researcher, student or resident of Harlem, the archives belong to you, the community.  It is our belief that everyone should have equal access. 

We are also collaborating with brilliant archivists, librarians, professors, writers, and artists who are dedicated to bringing the archives alive.

How We Do It.

Through a series of graduate and undergrad archival classes.  Our program will train students to

• collect stories from its Harlem neighbors and local archives and community organizations
• work with librarians and archivists to study and archive these materials; and
• share findings—via gallery exhibits, digital programs, and symposia–with CCNY students and faculty, scholars from around the country and all over the world, and local residents of the Harlem community.

We created a three-year project that will include symposia, interviews, online workshops, and exhibits as well as a resource section that will include links to public archives.  We hope to explore Harlem stories and neighborhoods and the dimensions of their changing histories, cultures, and demographics.  In doing so we are collaborating with:

The Langston Hughes Archives, The City College Black Studies Program, https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/lhf

The Cohen Library, CCNY with its numerous archives, https://library.ccny.cuny.edu/archives

The NYPL Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, https://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg

The Hurston/Wright Foundation, https://www.hurstonwright.org

We are also collaborating with brilliant archivists, librarians, professors, writers, and artists who are dedicated to bringing the archives alive.