Jennifer Baker: Publishing, Writing, and Representation

New MFA faculty member Jennifer Baker is a Pushcart-Prize-nominated writer, contributor for the digital publisher Electric Literature, founder of the podcast, Minorities in Publishing, and editor of the anthology Everyday People: The Color of Life. Baker has taught at conferences and in workshops; this is her first faculty position.

“I'm eager to engage with a concrete community over the course of the semester,” she says. “I feel like the dynamics in a workshop can build a firm sense of approach for not only participants, but for the ones leading discussion and critique. Instructors learn so much from students in workshops that it becomes a very reciprocal space for the exchange of ideas.”

Baker is teaching the course Creative Nonfiction Writing II: Art of the Essay. “Barely There,” her lauded piece published in Longreads last year, demonstrates mastery in bringing the reader into an essay viscerally.

“My focus was on hair more so than the body, even though hair is part of your body. I knew I wanted to discuss hair in a different way, one that didn't focus on the much-treaded discussion of the hair on my head,” she says. “And that's when critique partners helped me see that the piece wasn't just about hair, but the body and expectation, more so how societal expectations result in personal preferences.”

Her work as a writer and editor makes her an empathetic instructor. “If I weren't a writer, I might not think so much about how writers react and approach their writing because I'd be looking at things from one lens. When you not only produce work, but edit work, and then also engage with people from the idea to the final product you can really see and relate to how the writer's mind works.”

“My editing style is on par with my writing style in that I ask many questions, most primarily ‘What is this about?’” Baker continues: “‘What's my aim here? Who am I speaking to? What do I want to leave readers with at the end of this piece?’” Digging deep for answers to those questions, she reminds writers that there is no one way to tell a story or organize a narrative. “You can be experimental, direct, linear, or epistolary,” she says. “I like to work out methodology as well as reasoning in my work, and with those I work with in the instructional space or publishing space.” 

Baker is committed to shining a light on underrepresented voices in literature and publishing. “The industry has a lot of work to do, but Minorities in Publishing really aims to showcase that we're here, and there's always going to be space for us,” Baker says. “[My podcast] started out and continues to be a place for people to learn and know that there are many, many people of various backgrounds in the industry doing this work for various reasons. I really didn't think I'd still be doing it six years and more than 100 episodes later. It’s become part of my identity.”

There is clearly much work still to be done. “I've seen publishing focus on the moment rather than the long game. Have there been more acquisitions of books by and about BIPOC?” Baker asks. “Sure. But what were those numbers before, and how steadily will this continue?”

For the anthology, Everyday People, she says, “The biggest thing for me was to ensure I was creating an anthology focusing on BIPOC authors and perspectives that was not centering trauma that comes from being a specific identity. I wanted the full swath of the human experience, as cliché as that may sound, which centered BIPOC writers and allowed you to relate to them—no matter the micro and macro issues they're going through in their life—and to see different approaches in storytelling in style, voice, structure, and aims.” And she did, as discussed in an interview for epiphany.

In Baker’s editing and in her own writing, she serves as an example to her future students of how to go both wide and deep, paying keen attention to both the self and the wider world—and our place in it.