Education

Ph.D., English/Creative Writing - University of Louisiana at Lafayette
M.A., English - Andrews University
B.A., Northern Caribbean University
B.A., Mass Communications - Northern Caribbean University

Biography

Wandeka Gayle is a Jamaican writer, a visual artist, and an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Spelman College. She is also the author of “Motherland and Other Stories” (Peepal Tree Press 2020) and has been awarded writing fellowships from Hedgebrook, Kimbilio Fiction, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the Hurston/Wright Foundation, the Martha’s Vineyard Creative Writing Institute and the Vermont Studio Center.

She received her Ph.D. in English with a Creative Writing (Fiction) concentration from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Other writing has appeared in “The Rumpus, Transition,” “Prairie Schooner,” “Interviewing the Caribbean,” and elsewhere. She is currently at work on her first novel, “My Name Is Sweet Thing,” an excerpt of which won the Solstice Literary Prize for Fiction in 2023.

Her writing – critical and creative – focuses on the rich and varied experiences of the African Diaspora, exploring particularly the Afro Caribbean and African American migration, the adaptability to place, the preservation of home through custom and memory, and the balance between assimilation and cultural erasure. 

Gayle, who has been teaching at the college level for approximately sixteen years, was the recent visiting assistant professor of fiction at Southern Utah University (SUU), has also taught at her alma mater, Northern Caribbean University in Jamaica and at ULL, where she received the Bernice and Robert Webb Award for Excellence in Teaching while a doctoral candidate. She has taught creative writing, literature, journalism, composition, syntax, and grammar courses. Gayle is also a former journalist who worked first as a staff reporter then as a freelance writer at the Gleaner Company and the “Jamaica Business Journal.”

She is also a visual artist whose watercolor and acrylic paintings largely feature floral and pastoral Jamaica and have been featured in “The Southwestern Review,” “Da Vibe magazine,” “The Sunday Gleaner” and on Smile Jamaica, It’s Morning Time (TVJ).

Courses Taught

Introduction to Creative Writing (SENG 305)

The Craft of Fiction (SENG 396)

Creative Non-Fiction Workshop (SENG 391)

Journalism Workshop (SENG 381)

Arts Journalism (SENG 302)

First Year Composition (SENG 103)

 

Research Interests

Creative Writing

Ethnic/ Cultural Studies 

Immigration Literature 

Caribbean Literature

Postcolonial Literature

Africana literature

 

Publications

Select Publications

BOOK

“Motherland and Other Stories,” Peepal Tree Press, (2020)

FICTION

"The Sacrifice" Black Ecologies Zine (August 2023)

"Solomon and The Shed" excerpt of novel-in-progress - Solstice Literary Magazine – Summer 2023 (**WINNER of the Fiction Award - Solstice Literary Contest - 2023) 

"The Last Time" midnight & indigo Issue 5 (August 10, 2021)

"The Blackout" Transition No. 129 (Fall 2020)

"Walker Woman" Prairie Schooner - vol. 94 no.2 (Summer 2020)

"The Wish" Blood Orange Review  vol. 11 no. 2 (Spring 2020)

Novel Excerpt - My Name Is Sweet Thing - Part 2 "The River" - Solstice Literary Magazine  (Fall 2019)

"Prodigal" - Kweli Journal   (Fall 2019) *Nominated for an O Henry Prize

"Help Wanted" - Pleiades - vol. 39 no.2 (Summer 2019) *Nominated for a Pushcart Prize

Novel Excerpt -  My Name is Sweet Thing - Part 1 "Whose Little Girl Am I?"  -  Solstice Literary Magazine - (Spring 2019)  

"Cecile" Interviewing the Caribbean (Winter 2018) 

“Finding Joy” midnight & indigo (Winter 2018) 

“Birdie.” Moko, Issue 14 (November 2018)

“The Encounter.” aaduna, vol 7. no. 2 (Summer 2017)

“Melba.” Susumba Issue 8, (July 2016)

“Market Bus Ride.” Southwestern Review, (Spring 2013)

CREATIVE NON-FICTION 

"The First Story" Ink Anthology, Hippocampus Magazine, (November 23, 2021)

"The Longest Hour" Tupelo Quarterly, (August 14, 2021) *Runner-up TQ24 Prose Open Prize

"Jamaican Bus Rides" Aunt Chloe (Fall 2020) 

"The Choice" The Rumpus - Enough Series - (March 31, 2020)

"The Year in Red Mountain Country" - Teacher Voice Anthology  (December 2019)

"On Nudity.” Southwestern Review, (Spring 2018)

“July 12, 2007.” Past-Ten, (July 12, 2017)

“Land of Peaches.” Rigorous, vol 1. no. 2. (April 2017)

“Into the Cold.” Life-info, vol. 10 no. 1 (2011) 

POETRY

Two Poems: "Muse" & "And When Did It Begin?" - Smitten - Fall 2019

"Taboo” Duende (Spring 2019) 

“Go Beyond The Silence" Feminessay (May 2019)

Three Poems: “Homesick”, “Restoration”, and “In Remembrance”  Moko, Issue 13 (May 2018)

“In My Country.” Spectrum, vol. 39 no. 3 (Summer 2011) - adapted into a folk song for choral performance by composer, Dr. Andrew Marshall.