Meet the Fellow: Teline Trần of Wendy's Subway
"Having a fresh viewpoint in an organization is important and you can’t find that by not opening it up to more people."
LitNYS: Can you tell me a little bit about what you do at Wendy’s Subway?
TT: I am the membership and community engagement coordinator at Wendy’s Subway. Our membership program is a way to have more people get involved in our programming, as well as our library and editorial program. I also maintain relationships with community partners to share resources that our library and publisher offer.
I was a fellow back in 2020 and so were quite a few of the permanent staff. The fellowship has kind of acted as a vehicle to give people professional experience as art workers in the literary industry and also for people to become more involved with Wendy’s Subway. Our librarian was a fellow. Our managing editor was a fellow, and others.
LitNYS: It’s interesting that Wendy’s Subway has really built its foundation on fellowships. I had no idea.
TT: Not all of our fellows have become permanent staff. A lot have moved on to other art jobs or more schooling, but quite a few of us have become committed to the organization after the fellowship because it gives you so much freedom to explore the organization and what we do. People become committed.
LitNYS: Can you talk a little bit about the fellowship that you did and how you learned about it?
TT: I was a programming fellow for around ten months in 2020. It started out mostly remote because we were hosting a lot of our programs on Zoom, and I was helping out with publicizing as well.
Wendy’s Subway is a library, a publisher and a writing space. We host a lot of public programs like reading groups and workshops and talks.
I learned about Wendy's Subway by an off-handed chance when I was living in Brooklyn back in 2018. A friend told me about a screening that was happening at WS. It was a screening and talk that a current resident was hosting. I attended and thought, “What a cool space – it’s a library but it’s curated and they do art and literature.”
A couple of years later I was in a Zoom reading group and saw one of my classmates log on with a Wendy’s Subway account. I asked him how he had known about them. He said he was a fellow there, and I should apply.
At the start of the pandemic, everything was online and I wanted to stay engaged and so applied for the fellowship.
LitNYS: Based on your experience in the organization now and also from being a fellow, what would you say are some of the values that shape the fellowship at WS?
TT: A lot of it is pretty self directed. It’s based on your interest and skill set. Every year we have different calls for the kinds of fellows that we are looking for. Last year we put it on hold to think about what our capacity was and what we needed help with — ranging from our needs in editorial, programming, the library, as well as communications.
This year we really want to expand our library projects since we moved into a new space this past year. We have been getting everything organized and thinking expansively about what our library project is.
We are also going to put out a call for a communications fellow. During the pandemic, our online audience grew a lot. Now we offer programs not just in our library in Bushwick, but a lot of the time they’re hybrid or only on Zoom, taking into account that we have a growing international audience. We have had to understand how to navigate social media and how that relates with press and distribution of our publishing program, so we are looking for a communications fellow.
The fellowships are very aligned with the organization and our current projects. You won’t be doing busy work, but you’ll be more of a key member initiating and supporting projects that are already happening. Also, you are given the freedom to continue the projects after the fellowship and a lot of the time people do join our staff.
You get the opportunity to publish your own fellowship publication, which is usually someone’s first publication. People have done poetry or hybrid experimental texts, usually around 40 pages. A lot of people were able to use the fellowship to get their first work out.
LitNYS: This says a lot about what I consider to be the unique structure of WS. The roles aren’t necessarily discrete. You’re not just a writer. Most people come to programming because they are writers, so that’s a really interesting model.
TT: We get all sorts of folks. We get a lot of artists, designers, scholars, and interdisciplinary artists. It’s pretty reflective of the kinds of texts we publish as well.
LitNYS: Way back when you did the fellowship, what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced?
TT: It was my first job that was remote — in 2020. It was really kind of hard for me to gauge a lot of the communication of it and understanding the audience and the kinds of people who came into WS.
Also, in choosing to focus on certain projects — since the fellowship model is so open — you kind of have to get familiar with the workflow of WS and then bring yourself into the things that you want to be involved in.
My colleagues welcomed me with open arms and were ready to tell me about the project, include me in tasks, and hear what I thought about it. But, since Wendy’s is so fluid and there are many projects going on, it can be pretty intimidating for a newcomer if you don’t know what kind of thing you are already interested in.
LitNYS: What do you feel were the best aspects of doing it?
LitNYS: I grew to understand how the literary arts world worked in New York. New York is pretty unique, especially independent publishing.
The fellowship publication was really great — to compile my poems for the first time and get editorial support in that. My publication is coming out this spring and other fellows have gone through the same process. It has definitely helped their professional lives, as well as their careers as writers, artists, or editors.
LitNYS: Not all organizations develop fellowships, but given your experience, what would you say to an organization to encourage them to consider fellowships? What does it add?
TT: It adds so much. Having a fresh viewpoint in an organization is important and you can’t find that by not opening it up to more people. We’ve been really lucky to work with a really diverse set of artists and writers who have started their own projects or changed how we view things or spearheaded initiatives that wouldn’t have happened without them, so it really helps with the growth of an organization.
LitNYS: What are some of the interesting projects that we should look forward to at WS?
TT: We have a yearly initiative called the Quick and the Dead. Iit’s a year-long project that focuses on a deceased artist and writer. We start out with an internal study group of the person’s work and everything that they’ve made. Then we build out a series of programming by inviting other guests to facilitate talks and host workshops. We have a curatorial aspect of it too. It ends with a publication.
Last year we did it around the life and work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha who was a Korean performance artist and writer. We did it around her only book Dictee. We hosted four seminars around language, historical memory, poetry and performance, and the history of Korea and Korean Americans in the art world today. We commissioned Korean musical artists Sunik Kim and Na Mira. We have a forthcoming publication from this process. We also hosted a marathon reading at the Whitney Museum as part of their biennial because it featured work from Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. We also had a featured shelf of her work, as well as related work that was on display at our library and online.
That was a really fun project. We are going to start that up again in the fall for a different artist.
LitNYS: I just read Dictee for the first time about a month ago. It was incredible.
TT: It is incredible. It’s so rich and there are so many points of analysis that are so relevant to the politics and art world today. She had a really big impact on so much. It was a really fruitful experience for all of us to focus on her work.
