SMEA Professor Cleo Woelfle-Erskine is part of a Simpson Center initiative for trans students, postdocs, staff, and faculty. The tri-campus online writing group for trans faculty, staff, and graduate students who work across the University of Washington system is part of the Imagining Trans Futures crossdisciplinary research group, funded by the Simpson Center. Whether working on a book, journal article, dissertation, or a creative project, this group will provide community and accountability for trans scholars in the UW system. All trans scholars are welcome to join, no matter their disciplinary background.

The Imagining Trans Futures crossdisciplinary research group works to support trans scholars in their research and writing and to bring trans studies scholars to the UW community through a speaker series open to the public. The aim of this group is to support trans academics around one of the most challenging parts of academic work–writing and publishing their research. They’ll gather for a two-hour monthly session online during the 2020-2021 academic year (beginning in November 2020, in conjunction with our visiting guest) where they’ll set research goals, write together, and support one another. Connected to the speaker series, the group will also meet with visiting speakers once a quarter to discuss their experiences in academic and creative publishing as well as navigating academia as trans scholars. Through Simpson Center funding, the group can provide copies of the books from upcoming speakers in the Imagining Trans Futures speaker series for at least the first five writing group members to use in their group discussions. Each meeting will have a dedicated portion of time for working and writing together, so writers can make consistent progress on their project. Meeting times for the writing group will be based on the availability of participants.

If you are interested in participating, please fill out this form by October 15.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Neil Simpkins (nfsimp@uw.edu) or Ching-In Chen (chingin@uw.edu).