Blaise Allysen Kearsley
Blaise Allysen Kearsley is a New York-based Black-biracial writer and teacher and the creator/producer/host of How I Learned, a long-running storytelling, comedy, and reading series.
Her writing has appeared in Catapult, Longreads, VICE, The Boston Globe, Midnight Breakfast, Electric Literature’s The Nervous Breakdown, Oldster, Elle.com, three creative nonfiction anthologies—Nonwhite and Woman, PEREGRINE (forthcoming, Yellow Arrowing Publishing, November 22, 2022), Cringe (Crown Publishing, 2008), and Mortified: Real Words. Real People. Real Pathetic. (Gallery Books, 2006). She has written for several magazines and online outlets dating back to 2001 that are perhaps not worth mentioning by name and probably don’t even exist anymore.
She teaches mostly memoir and personal essay writing at Gotham Writers Workshop, 7 Daughters of Eve Theatre & Performance Co., Writing Workshops, and Blaise Writers Workshop, which she founded in 2017.
She is a contributing editor at Vestal Review, the oldest flash fiction journal on the planet. As a storyteller she has performed at The Moth, Risk, Literary Death Match, Mortified, The Gotham Storytelling Festival, and at various venues that serve booze and sometimes snacks. In another life she took a lot of pictures with actual cameras, and some of those pictures were published in places like New York Magazine, Gawker, Playbill, The Morning News, JPG Magazine, and Nerve.
She lives in Brooklyn but if you need her for something somewhere else, maybe she’ll go there.
Student Feedback for Blaise
Blaise’s feedback was fabulous—thoughtful, insightful, generous and inspiring. Katherine Arnup
Blaise’s self led course materials were thorough, well organized, and a pleasure to read. I learned a lot on my own working through her materials as well as in person when we had live classes. Blaise offers thoughtful feedback as well as helpful writing exercises. I enjoyed the course and would absolutely recommend it if you are working on a memoir. Angela DeMarse
She was wonderful! Henny Hiemenz
“Blaise is a gifted teacher. Her class has been water in the desert for me.”
“Blaise was really able to build a community on Zoom. This is an incredibly difficult thing to do, and she made it seem so easy.”
“This is a fantastic format. The small class size ensures everyone gets ample time and submission opportunities. Blaise is such a skilled reader and editor, and her notes are always valuable. She offers wonderful perspectives, and assembles groups of writers with keen perspectives of their own. Highly recommend.”
“What Blaise does is so specific and special. You can’t find that in other workshops.”
“I love that the readings center BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ voices. That has been an important and edifying element.”
“During quarantine I had to show up for myself and others who counted on me, even when I felt like all I wanted to do was hide under my couch. Being part of this creative group of writers saved me.”
“I feel so inspired, enriched, encouraged, and empowered in my writing practice. I’ve been sitting at my desk since we all logged off just feeling how full of gratitude my heart is—for you, the workshop, and the entire group.”
“I genuinely looked forward to each week. The advice you gave sent me back out into the world with confidence and purpose.”
“Submitting something for publication for the first time was one of my goals for our eight-week workshop and that gave me the push I needed to hit the send button. Everything this group taught me about specificity, vulnerability and vivid storytelling made a huge difference.”
