MEET HUGH RYAN
“Mentoring makes both partners in the relationship into stronger artists, more in touch with their own practice - while also pushing both mentor and mentee into new and unexpected realms.”
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Disciplines: Nonfiction/essays, Curation
Hugh Ryan is the award-winning author of When Brooklyn Was Queer (2019) and The Women’s House of Detention (2022), and a forthcoming memoir in essays. He teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA program at the Bennington Writing Seminars, and runs the Queer History 101 Book Club with Peppermint for Allstora.com.
He received the 2016 Martin Duberman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, several New York Foundation for the Arts grants in Nonfiction Literature, the 2019-2020 Allan Berube Prize for outstanding work in public LGBT History from the Committee on LGBT History at the American Historical Association, and the 2019 New York City Book Award. He has been awarded residencies at both Yaddo and Watermill, and was a a 2016 QAM Fellow.
Work
My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely
mentor profile
What interests you about mentoring?
“I love working one-on-one with another artist, and spending the necessary time together to get to know each other's needs, rhythms, strengths, and weaknesses. Mentoring makes both partners in the relationship into stronger artists, more in touch with their own practice - while also pushing both mentor and mentee into new and unexpected realms.”
Given your experience and interests, what kind of emerging artist do you feel best positioned to support?
“I'm best positioned to work with nonfiction writers, or anyone who uses extensive research in their practice - especially folks who blend writing with other art forms, like curation or performance.”
As a mentor, what would you like to offer an emerging artist? What would you like to receive?
“I'd like to offer collaboration, a first/last/constant reader, a sounding board for ideas, a place to discuss the non-art parts of being a queer artist in the world, and the flexibility to be all of those things or none of those things as our mentorship requires. I'd love to receive the same, and also to hear what it is like right now being an up-and-coming artist.”
This Mentor prefers to work with a Fellow in-person in NYC, but is open to working remotely for the right person!