New Stories All Stories
Seasons Episodes
Table of contents
Introduction 0 Why Write for the Public? 1 What to Expect, from Pitch to Publication 2 How to Write a Pitch 3 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 1: Structure 4 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 2: Style 5 Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms 6 Habits of Thriving Public Anthropologists 7 Cultivating the Craft of Writing 8
Table of contents
Introduction 0 Why Write for the Public? 1 What to Expect, from Pitch to Publication 2 How to Write a Pitch 3 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 1: Structure 4 How To Tell a Great Story, Part 2: Style 5 Navigating Ethics and Reducing Harms 6 Habits of Thriving Public Anthropologists 7 Cultivating the Craft of Writing 8
An image focuses on two hands of a statue in shadow coming together holding a white flower.
poem / Reflections

Survival Notes

Alma Simba
Black African women in former colonial centers such as London gesture to subversive ways of communicating with those imprisoned in archives across generations.
A line of cattle travel across a dry desert landscape, kicking up dust.
poem / Expressions

An Imagined Monograph for Nongqawuse

Alma Simba
A 19th-century prophetess reportedly bore a serious message from the ancestors to her Xhosa people amid British colonial assault. The written archives judged her—but much still remains unknown and unacknowledged.
An old bucket coated in multicolored limestone sits in front of a limestone-covered wall out of which protrudes a faucet dripping water that falls into the bucket.
poem / Reflections

Her Dirge

Alma Simba
A poet-historian reflects on women’s labor carrying memories and the past.
Dozens of papers with text on them are punctured and strung horizontally on wires.
poem / Human Rights

Archived Haints

Alma Simba
SAPIENS’ 2024 poet-in-residence conjures the voices of those imprisoned in archives.
Clear water streams down moss-covered rocks amid thick, luxurious vegetation with broad tropical leaves and bright red and yellow flowers.
poem / Counterpoint

Coastal Eden

Alma Simba
A poet interrogates the garden of Eden origin story by reimagining it against the backdrop of East Africa’s coastal environment.
A blurred, black-and-white image features a person from the shoulders up looking to their left against a pitch-black background.
poem / Wayfinding

Nameless Woman

Alma Simba
Archives often render marginalized people’s histories invisible. In response to such erasure, a poet writes a letter to explore the experience of historically enslaved African and Creole women in Tanzania and Mauritius—and the ways in which they may have navigated their lives.
An open window separates a pitch-dark room on one side from an illuminated teal exterior and light blue curtains blowing in the breeze on the other.
poem / Phenomenon

The Visit

Alma Simba
SAPIENS’ 2024 poet-in-residence imagines a wordless conversation with a troubled figure from the past and considers legacies of marginalization during the figure’s life and in archives.
Taken from under the frond of a leafy overhang, waters near the shore of a beach gently ripple under the bright orange glow of the setting sun.
poem / Reflections

Bila Mwili

Alma Simba
A poet-historian in Tanzania remembers those who have passed but who are still nearby.
In a sepia-and-white color palette, two hands cup a pile of sand, much of which is falling between the fingers.
poem / Reflections

Cold Hubris and Fundo

Alma Simba
A poet-historian reflects on the legacy of colonial-era collecting practices in Tanzania that tore Black Indigenous ancestors from their communities and history.